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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029828">The road not taken looks real good now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beeexx/pseuds/Beeexx'>Beeexx</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>US [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tenet (2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action &amp; Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Anxiety Attacks, Badass, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Falling In Love, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Fighting, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mild Gore, Missing Scene, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Spies &amp; Secret Agents, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:13:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>60,608</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029828</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beeexx/pseuds/Beeexx</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Neil wakes up having been declared dead he doesn't exactly expect his whole life to turn even more upside down. Only it does... </p><p>And with it comes memories of a life Neil's tried for years to repress. But not only that, it puts him in the near vicinity of Him, the leader of the organisation called Tenet and life as Neil's known so far, it will never be the same again. </p><p>The story of how Neil met The Protagonist for the first time and how their relationship developed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>US [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2101314</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have had this sitting on my computer for ages and this chapter has been done and I haven't posted it which is outrageous but I've been feeling very down so it has slipped my mind.</p><p>Anyway, here's some feelings and angst and Neil and The Protagonist being cool and badass spies, it's been an emotional ride. I hope you enjoy the first installation.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neil wakes up and he doesn’t understand how.  </p><p>He should be dead, he’s almost certain he did die. </p><p>The word Cambodia rings loudly in his head.</p><p>He opens his eyes, regrets it immediately when the wave of nausea hits him, closes them again and breathes through his nose and waits till it passes. There’s movement to his right, feels it more than he hears it, and he has the sudden need to open his eyes again, unable to handle being watched without knowing where he is.</p><p>“Take it easy. You’ve been through a lot.” The voice says before he can do as much. Male, American, West Coast, he maps out immediately, but finds it hard holding a thought in his head for much longer than that. </p><p>He angles his head slightly towards the man and blinks his eyes open once more. The vision blurs in front of him and he’s suddenly acutely aware of how painful it is to breathe. He must have made a sound because the man stands up and asks him something he doesn’t catch. </p><p>“What?” He croaks out, his voice barely audible to his own ears. His throat feels scratchy and he wonders for how long he’s been in this state.</p><p>“Would you like some morphine?” The man repeats the question, he’s moved closer and Neil blinks, trying to clear his vision. </p><p>“No.” He croaks out again, shakes his head against his better judgment and he almost blacks out for a moment, grabs the side of the bed and feels solid wood underneath his fingertips and presses into it, hard, refusing to pass out. Once his vision has cleared he forces himself to look at the man, pristine gray suit, beard, brown intelligent eyes, built solidly, doesn’t look much older than 35, handsome. He looks tired though, lines around his eyes and something worried beneath the alertness of them.</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>Neil nods again, but much slower this time.</p><p>“What happened? Where am I?” He looks around the room, some sort of hospital by the looks of it, but with the blinds shut it’s hard for him to gauge anything by it.</p><p>Something like relief flashes across his face before it’s gone and the man grows serious again. </p><p>“You remember what happened?”</p><p>Neil tries to remember, his brain foggy as hell and when he tries holding a memory for longer it evaporates like smoke, making him grasps for scraps that have no coherency to them.</p><p>He remembers Cambodia, he remembers the sweltering heat making his clothes stick to his skin like a layer suffocating him, but then it abruptly stops. </p><p>“Ambush?” He asks and the man nods gravely.</p><p>“Yeah, we manage to bring you in just in time.”</p><p>“I don’t remember what happened.”</p><p>“I’m not surprised, you’ve been in a coma for 3 weeks.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>The man doesn’t look troubled by Neil’s lack of eloquence, or the weakness he's showing, the waver in his voice and the uncertainty he feels by this new knowledge. Instead he looks at Neil with kind understanding eyes, and it’s somewhat calming in what’s beginning to feel really fucking messed up to him. As odd as it is the man makes Neil feel safe.</p><p>“Welcome to the after life, you’ve been declared dead.”</p><p>“I - what?” He feels a headache starting to take form, one that’s making it hard to focus on anything in the room other than the man’s voice.</p><p>“Neil, we’ll talk about this later when you’ve rested, okay.” </p><p>Neil wants to protest, but the tiredness is overwhelming and his focus is slipping and he feels so out of it at the moment he can barely remember his own name. The last thing he remembers is the man getting up and pressing the button by his bed, and then everything goes numb and unconsciousness drags him under. </p><p>……..</p><p>Neil hasn’t thought about his father in a long time. To be honest he doesn’t remember much about him other than his eyes. He hated those eyes, even when he was too young to understand why he did. They were cold, calculating and even when he was smiling he never really looked happy. </p><p>A therapist had once said that the reason he didn’t remember much of his father was because his body associated him with trauma and stress that had negatively affected his brain which had made the memories of him murky and unreliable. The problem to Neil was that he doesn’t remember any of his childhood to have been traumatic either, but had just decided to accept that as the explanation for it, not dwell on it and just tell his mother afterwards that the session had been helpful. </p><p>He used to have dreams of a sinister smile though, long after therapy ended. He hasn’t had those in a while, but they were triggered again after the funeral and seems to have come back now too which he thinks is due to whatever happened in Cambodia. The smile though, it scares him as much at 30 as it did at 15. </p><p>And Neil thinks he’s doomed to be haunted by his father’s ghost for the rest of his life, in one way or another.</p><p> </p><p>……..</p><p> </p><p>A nurse tells him he’s been in and out for 2 days when he wakes the next time, feeling much clearer and more alert than before. The man from earlier is nowhere to be seen and it bothers him a little for some strange reason. The nurse tells him he was cut open with a knife from his abdomen to his chest, left to bleed to death and barely survived the bloodloss. He has broken 5 ribs and has a concussion which makes it understandable as to why everything hurts most of the time, even though everything is comfortably numb at the moment. When he looks down at his body it looks like a horror show, tubes sticking out of him and bandages everywhere, his body so pale it looks see through and he averts his eyes before he feels the need to throw up.</p><p>When he asks about the man from earlier the nurse only says that he’s been notified of Neil’s lucidness and he will come back once he’s available. It’s frustratingly little to go by but he gets the picture, whoever the man is he is important. Too important to be trifled with someone like Neil, whatever the hell that is these days.</p><p>…….</p><p>Neil doesn’t think he’ll ever forget his mother. Sweet, funny, stubborn, overprotective and the biggest supporter in his life, who he loved more than anything. He remembers that after she sold their big house, the one he used to refer to as the castle, dancing in their new kitchen became a habit of theirs. She’d laughed and he’d make even sillier moves just to hear it again. Laughter became normal again, appropriated over what Neil now knew for what it actually was, depression. He remembers growing up that his mother would smile but she never looked happy to him, not like his friend’s mothers were like. When they moved she came out of her shell and started to smile in what felt to be genuine, and for a long time it was just the two of them, them against the world and he’d loved it.</p><p>Then he became a teenager and realised she was ridiculously overprotective which turned him into an asshole. An asshole who snuck out at night to go to parties and make out with boys in the back of cars without her knowledge. </p><p>He remembers his first boyfriend, Austin. His mother was away on a fundraiser for the evening and wouldn’t get back until much later. He and Austin had eaten pizza for dinner, lounged around in the living room which according to Austin was still bigger than normal people’s living rooms and were engaged in a very heated makeout session on the couch with Neil already without a shirt and Austin’s trousers low on his legs. The coughing had brought a stop to it, his mother in a long woolen coat and dark satin dress with a raised polished eyebrow had Austin shooting off Neil in a second. Neil wanted to die, the embarrassment so humiliating he for a second didn’t know what to do. </p><p>He was 17 and he’d been found making out with a guy on the couch. Worse yet he hadn’t even mentioned to his mother that he was most definitely gay. He had panicked, thrown a look at Austin whose pants were still forgotten around his ankles with a similar look of despair on his face, for his mother to snort at them in amusement and throw the coat on the back of a chair and ask them if they wanted tea. Neil had looked dumbstruck after her as she put the kettle on in the adjoining kitchen, humming to herself and rifling through drawers to find the too many tea sorts they always had laying around in the kitchen, the floor creaking in familiarity. Austin had looked at him, unsure and Neil didn’t know what to do other than to shrug and leave it up to Austin to choose. They’d eventually join her for tea, pants on this time, and they made an odd trio for sure, but one that wasn’t too bad and strangely fit together at that moment. When Austin left his mother had given him a look and Neil had felt guilty for not telling her.</p><p>“I don’t care. I’m only sad you felt like you couldn’t tell me. Have I ever given you the impression I’d have something against you if you were gay?” His mother looks sad, blue eyes wide and unhappy and Neil had felt even worse. He didn’t cry often, but he found that in that moment he was struggling to keep them at bay. His mother’s eyes widened and she took a step forward and put her arms around him. He hadn’t been held like this in ages and he’d forgotten how safe she’d always managed to make him feel.</p><p>“No, baby I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty. This isn’t about me, god what an idiot I am.” Neil gulped back his tears and forced himself to speak.</p><p>“I’ve known a while. I was going to say something but I guess I could never find the right moment to say ‘oh by the way mum I’m gay.”</p><p>“Over dinner would have been fine.” He snorts and she tightens her arms around him before she looks down at him and grasps his face between her hands.</p><p>“I love you for who you are. Being gay doesn’t change that okay?”</p><p>“Okay.” He’d said and they had hugged again. He was relieved though, even though he knew deep down that his mother would have been okay with it.</p><p>He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about that now.</p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>Recovery takes a while but he’s making great progress according to the doctor whose name he manages to get out of him after being a relentless asshole about it. It’s Henrik and he’s German and that’s all he’ll be told and there will be no arguments about it. Neil grumbles but for once does as he’s told and continues with the exercises he’s been given. He’s eating solid food and he’s walking but however much he wills his body back to normal it doesn’t happen. He’s never been this hurt before, not in the field or outside of it, which means he can’t accurately devise a timeline on whether he’s making actual progress or if people are just trying to be nice to him. </p><p>The man, who he has taken to calling The Boss, his presence has been scarce since they first met, and he hasn’t gotten a chance to talk to him more since after that one time weeks ago now. There is something about him, something familiar yes, but something other than that that tells Neil he needs to speak with him. He’s tried shaking the feeling but finds that he can’t, and it makes him as frustrated as much as it intrigues him, a feeling that he’s used to associating with calculations and hypotheses and being on the other side of an experiment he can’t wait to study, and he hasn’t considered himself to be a scientist since his university days, and that was many years ago now. </p><p>A week later he sneaks out of his room, a poor resemblance of how he used to conduct himself, but skilled enough that it takes him out of the hospital facility of wherever the fuck they are without getting caught. When he opens the exit door he’s suddenly outside surrounded by nothing as far as the eye can see, desolate and abandoned, like they are at the edge of the world and no one knows where they are. It’s snowing heavily, making it hard to see much further, and his breath immediately fogs the air making him wish he had the foresight of stealing a jacket along with the cigarette and lighter he nicked off the nurse a few days ago. There are containers all around him, laid out as to look like they’ve been abandoned, left hapardazedly around, but to Neil’s eyes they look planned out, laid out in a specific order so as to work perfectly for whatever strategic reason. </p><p>He’s gathered he’s in some sort of secret base of something, the question is why and feels stupid he hasn’t spent more time trying to figure out what the hell is going on. He decides that he’s going to from now on, pay more attention to everything around him so he isn’t so overwhelmed by everything. He lights the cigarette, relishes at the tiny bit of warmth the flame gives him and takes a drag. He puts his left hand under his armpit for warmth, and feels himself calm a little with each drag he takes. He hasn’t smoked in ages, never really were much of one either, but did it from time to time because he found he preferred it to alcohol. It feels good doing something he isn’t supposed to after weeks of feeling like a hostage in his own body, taking orders from people he doesn’t know or trust.</p><p>“I don’t need to tell you that smoking kills you.” A voice says to his right. He feels a thrill go down his spine, it’s The Boss, an exasperated expression on his face as he makes his way to where Neil is, in a thick puffer jacket and carrying a blanket which he gives to Neil without a word. Neil gratefully takes it and immediately feels much more comfortable in the snow. </p><p>“What are you doing up?” The man stands beside him, looking not at Neil but towards the forest he can barely make out, dark and brooding with tall trees that stretch out further in front of them. Neil shrugs.</p><p>“Felt like some air.”</p><p>“I see you’re walking.”</p><p>“You already knew that.”</p><p>The man glances at Neil before he looks away.</p><p>“I did.”</p><p>Neil takes another drag of the cigarette and the man rolls his eyes before he holds his hand out. For a moment Neil thinks he’s going to put it out and part of him wants to stubbornly refuse him, but his resolve is diminishing with the way the man is looking at him, and he hands it to him. To his surprise the man just takes a drag himself and exhales, the smoke forming clouds around his face. Neil snorts.</p><p>“I didn’t peg you for a smoker.”</p><p>“I’m not, not under normal circumstances, but this called for an exception.”</p><p>“What’s the exception?” Neil asks curiously, the man smiles and Neil’s struck by how handsome he is again, before his eyes twinkle, his voice full of mirth.</p><p>“You.” </p><p>Neil averts his eyes, feels his heartbeat pick up and is struck by the same feeling of wanting his mother to continue laughing, he wants to make this man smile again. He shakes his head and takes back the cigarette from him and takes a few more drags before he drops it to the ground and pushes some snow on top of it. </p><p>“Where are we?”</p><p>“I know you have questions Neil and I will answer them, but not until tomorrow.”</p><p>“How do you know my name?” He asks instead. The man smiles again.</p><p>“Instinct.” </p><p>“That’s bullshit.” The man chuckles, almost a laugh, but not quite.</p><p>“I read your file.”</p><p>“Find anything interesting?”</p><p>“Some.” The man admits but doesn’t elaborate further and Neil snorts in something that sounds like frustration to his own ears.</p><p>“You like your secrets around here I see.”</p><p>“You’ll understand soon.” Neil thinks it would be inappropriate to glare at the man, it would be too childish and he would never be taken seriously afterward so instead he bites his lips into a thin line which he hopes translates loudly enough to what he’s feeling. The man smiles wryly before he lifts an eyebrow.</p><p>“Can I escort you back to bed?” Coming from anyone other than this man Neil would think it an invitation, but he’s realizing quickly that he hasn’t met many people like the one standing beside him either and bites down the crude reply that’s threatening to slip out. He nods instead and starts walking without looking back, knowing the man will follow him. The journey isn’t far but he's exhausted by the time he gets there, so much so that even the hospital bed he’s started to hate looks inviting to him now. He puts the blanket on the chair and takes off the black nondescript pullover the nurse had given him a while back. The movement is awkward, his chest still hurting and when he finally wrenches it off there’s sweat clinging to his forehead. He’s so frustrated by his own body and its lack of coordination and disobedience that he doesn’t know how to be 30 years old and barely able to shower himself.</p><p>“You’ll get through it. You just need to have patience.”</p><p>Fuck you Neil thinks but only grunts angrily as a reply. He gets into bed, feeling very much like a child but the man doesn’t seem to be looking, his attention on his phone, which angers Neil too for some reason he’s too tired to understand. The man looks at Neil and smiles again, a little guarded and something like grief around the edges of his eyes and then gently puts his hand over Neil’s bicep and squeezes comfortably before he leaves with a parting good night.</p><p>“Good night.” Neil whispers into the long since empty room before he falls asleep, thoughts consumed by the man. </p><p>……</p><p>Neil is 24 and he’s just graduated with an MA degree in physics from Oxford, the world at his feet which he feels more than ready to take on, young and ambitious as he is.</p><p>He stumbles inside the house he considers more to be his mother’s at this point after spending the last five years in Oxford, at 6 in the morning, much more sober than he had planned to be at this point but still happily buzzing from the night he’s had. For good time’s sake his university friends and he had decided to do one last insane row together and a chance for him to show them London before they went their separate ways, was in order, and he sure delivered on that end he thinks as he tries closing the door as quietly as he can when he sneaks back home. He makes sure to sidestep the floorboards he knows creak and sneaks into the kitchen for a glass of water. On the fridge hangs a variety of photos of him and his mother together, the latest addition one from just a week ago when he graduated, her long arms around him and him holding the phone out to take the photo, both of them smiling ridiculously bright, their blue eyes popping in the light. He takes it down for a moment to just look at them before he smiles and hangs it back up.</p><p>As he’s turning around he sees she’s awake on the couch, a blanket draped around her shoulders, staring at the wall, motionless and rigid.</p><p>“Mom?” When there’s no answers he hurries towards her, worry seeping into his veins. He’s suddenly scared. He crouches beside her.</p><p>“Mom.” He says again grasping her hands that are wound so tightly together he has to pull to get them apart. That snaps her out of her state and she meets his eyes, she looks scared and sad and Neil doesn’t know what to do with that, her normally blue eyes now looking grey like the sky before a storm. He’s never seen her look like this, not even when his dad was still in the picture and his father’s claws were so deep into her she barely dared to breathe in the other direction in fear of repercussions, that now Neil feels his whole world tilt on its axis.  </p><p>“Mom, what’s wrong?” </p><p>Neil is 24 years old when his whole world shatters before his eyes.</p><p>He’s 24 years old when his mother tells him she’s ill, cancer that has progressed too far for anyone to do anything about it. Inoperable. That word rings in his ears for the months to come, inescapable and penetrating everything surrounding him. </p><p>Neil thinks that day was the last time he was happy.</p><p>…… </p><p>Neil doesn’t exactly know what he’s expecting, but the office the man holds is surprisingly sparse, doesn’t look much like an office really with its dreary cement walls, small pantry and ugly grey carpeted floor. There’s a desk in the middle with an uncomfortable looking chair and the only thing that gives some information that this man might be important is the stack of files piling up in front of him, other than that it barely looks used. Neil’s sitting in the chair in front of the man who is as usual in a tailored suit, making Neil miss his own wardrobe he’s worked all his life on perfecting. His mother loved clothes too and he guesses that was passed down to him at some point during the years he grew up with her. He’s wearing the blanket from yesterday over a t-shirt with a cigarette behind his ear that he stole this morning, with no intention of really smoking it, but had done it more as a need to make some sort of statement of indepence and disobedience, however small it might be. If the man has noticed it he says nothing about it.</p><p>He’s been given a cup of tea while the man drinks a black coffee and he’s waiting expectantly for whatever it is that the man is going to tell him. </p><p>When he doesn’t say anything other than looking contemplative Neil’s patience snaps in half.</p><p>“Why am I here?” The man sighs, intertwines his hands in front of him and leans slightly forward.</p><p>“You could leave if you want, you’ve been declared dead after all, no one’s stopping you.” Neil gives the man a deeply unimpressed look as an answer and he sighs, rubs at his temple in what looks to be frustration. Interesting Neil can’t help but think. </p><p>“Okay, once you’ve healed enough you can walk away if you want. You have my word no one will stop you.”</p><p>“But?”</p><p>“After what I’m about to tell you, I don’t think you’ll want to.” Neil leans back and crosses his arms.</p><p>“Well, go on then.”</p><p>The man seems to hesitate, his mouth twisting in unhappiness and a look of sadness passes so quickly over his features that Neil thinks he’s imagined it for a moment before he finally starts talking. </p><p>Neil’s had countless discussions about time travel with his friends at university before, as a game they used to play they would come up with ideas that were designed to be insane and ridiculous while the others were then supposed to make it make sense and they could spend hours debating bullshit theories made up while being comfortably buzzed. But it was all fun and games, nothing serious, just an exercise in flexing your brain as well as showing off.</p><p>The difference is that when this man talks about time travel, or inversion as he refers to it as, it doesn’t sound crazy. It sounds put together, logical even and talked about devoid of any attachment and sentimentality that would make him believe it’s nothing other than the truth. The man’s voice is soothing and he’s grounded in what he tells Neil that it’s hard not to be swept along by it. Or maybe it’s just that the man is so sure of himself it’s distracting Neil enough that he’s forgetting about the life altering information the man is telling him. His tea has long since gone cold and Neil’s shifted forwards, his curiosity getting the better of him. When the man stops talking Neil’s head is so full of questions he doesn’t know where to begin.</p><p>“Are you coming?” Neil’s so distracted he hasn’t really registered that the man has gotten up and is now standing by the door with an expectant look on his face. Neil’s scrambles to catch up, bites down a groan of pain as he pulls at his stitches and hurries after the man. The man walks through a dwindling set of corridors before he gets to a locked door guarded by two men who are heavily armed. Neil sizes them up, training he can’t get out of his head, but the men only nod at the man and leave without a word. The man opens the door and Neil follows him inside.</p><p>The machine is bigger than he’d thought, somewhat very inconvenient in its size as he inspects it. He can’t help but be extremely enamored by it though, runs a hand along the glass and fascinately watches his distorted image reflected through the glass.</p><p>“Why are you showing me this?” Neil turns and finds the man looking back at him, an intense look in his eyes that makes Neil’s breath catch. The man looks away and takes a step further into the room, allowing Neil to breathe once more.</p><p>“Thought you’d like it...But more than that I wanted to show you what you’re getting yourself into before you make the decision.”</p><p>“You already know what my answer is going to be.” Neil says because of course the answer is yes. This thing is bigger than anything he’s ever imagined before and there is no way in hell he’s opting out of it and the opportunities this presents to him. </p><p>“Yeah I do.” But he thinks he detects a note of bitterness in his voice before he turns back around to Neil, calm and collected again. </p><p>“But if you want to join you’ll have to go through the recruitment process like everyone else, and you have to pass.”</p><p>“You don’t think I will pass?” Neil should feel offended the man seems to think him incapable of passing some sort of test this requires, but instead it just makes him more determined. The man smiles, brilliantly, before he shrugs.</p><p>“We’ll see won’t we?”</p><p>…….</p><p>4 months after his mother tells him she’s ill she dies. It’s sunny the day it happens and Neil’s been expecting it for a while now. Even so, when it does happen it shocks him more than he’d thought it would and he finds himself biting hard into his hand in the hospital bathroom so he doesn’t scream out all the despair and sadness he’s feeling, with tears streaming down his face and while he feels the black hole around him threatening to pull him under. </p><p>In his pocket lies a black old flip phone his mother had given him just before she slipped under. She’d made him promise to always carry it with him and if something were ever to happen or he didn’t feel safe he should call the only number in the phone and help would come. His mother’s eyes had been clear and lucid, her voice hard and sure of herself. He believed she didn’t make it up and had promised to never let go of it. </p><p>The funeral is small, his mother didn’t have many people she was close with, but those who are here he considers to be her family and it gives him at least a little bit of comfort knowing that there were people who did care for her after all. There is a man in a wheelchair at the back, who doesn't say a word, barely acknowledging Neil, but he looks at his mother’s grave with such fond caring and sadness that he doesn’t have the heart to ask who he is. His mother had secrets from him, just as he had from her, it doesn’t surprise him that he doesn’t know who all these people are.</p><p>He catches the glimpse of a man, hidden in the dark, standing just out of sight by a black embassy car with sunglasses hiding his face from Neil’s view. When he looks again the man is gone and Neil doesn’t think about it more.</p><p>He cleans out the house but doesn’t have the heart to throw away all her stuff and saves most of it in storage before he sells the house, feeling terrible about putting their sanctuary up for sale to suddenly be inhabited by strangers who will erode and change the rooms in which Neil and his mother carved out their own space and memories in. </p><p>Along with the phone Neil carries a crumpled letter in his pocket. During the months he spends at home, he’s forgotten he’s even applied for the position to work at the Joint Intelligence Organisation as an analyst and pattern recognition for MI6, something he had planned on telling his mother when the time was right. She’s always been wary of government agencies and has on many occasions expressed her dislike of them, something Neil wasn’t sure he agreed on nor knew the underlying reasons for why she disliked them to begin with. It was his thesis supervisor who had mentioned it to him when he had said he felt the need to do something new and different after he was done with this, and had encouraged him to go through the long process of applying for the position, something he did with the belief that yes he’d probably be good at it but wouldn’t manage to get due to the lack of experience he had.</p><p>He had been very wrong about that, and when the letter had come in the mailbox, amidst his mother’s declining health he didn’t spare a second thought to it. One evening after they had a fight he’d found the letter on his desk, underneath bills and payments that needed to be sorted through and out of anger opened it, shocked to find that he had gotten the job. </p><p>Neil had never told his mother that he’d accepted the position and when she died it didin’t fucking matter anyway. Before he joins though, he changes his name, doesn’t much feel like a Max Barton, or Maximilien as he’s actually called, anymore when he has no one left in this life to tether him to what he leaves behind, but the memory of his mother. </p><p>So he becomes someone else because he can’t bear to be Max anymore.</p><p>That’s how Neil is born, out of pain. </p><p>…..</p><p>On orders from his doctor, Henrik the German, Neil takes up running. He’s never much liked running, always prefered static exercises to it, or driving a car for that matter, but it’s been hinted at to him that the physical parts of the evaluation is much harder than MI6’s ever was and he should prepare as much as he can. And he was in a coma for 3 weeks, got knifed, lost too much blood and couldn’t take in solid food for a while, so running is a good way to get him back on his feet. He runs in the forest around the base, which he’s been told is in a place called Kipisjärva in northern Finland, which makes him raise an eyebrow when he’s told, which just makes The Man say exactly in a knowing tone. It’s an unexpected place for sure, which is why it has been chosen.</p><p>He’s never been to Finland before, his dad always displayed a strange dislike for the country for some reason so before this he’s never set foot in the country. He’s been to countries nearby, Russia a few times when he was younger when they actually resembled something of a happy family who played in the snow and drank hot chocolate in the evenings in front of the fireplace. He still speaks russian even though he has a particular dislike, courtesy of his father for the language. Neil also has some relatives in Estonia and he speaks that language too. He doesn’t know why he’s thinking about that now though.</p><p>He likes snow though, always has, even when he has to run in it, there is something very calming with how it quiets the world around him like a blanket of comfort and protection. He comes to like the base somewhat too, when he gets discharged and gets a room that’s actually not half bad and he’s free to walk around how he pleases he notices the life around the place. Even though TENET agents shouldn't share much personal information for protection amongst one another, there is a sort of friendly camradire on the base amongst agents, recruits, and all personnel he isn’t used to. He had liked working for MI6, had first loved the accessibility that being an analyst gave him and had enjoyed working in the lab at first. But working in the lab and not seeing the action or understanding the threats they were fighting without being in the field had made it difficult after a while. He took the chance at becoming an agent when the chance arrived and rose quickly to that occasion too, rising quickly amongst the ranks. He had enjoyed the individuality the work offered him, as well as the team work and the kick of adrenaline it gave him after a successful job. While Neil was smart he was also a natural charmer, all that etiquette forced onto him as a child made him a natural pick for seducing marks too, something he didn’t struggle with as much as maybe he should have... and he doesn’t like thinking about what kind of person that makes him either. </p><p>The good thing with running is that it clears his mind, there is no room for thinking about his parents or his past life when his muscles are burning in agitation and he keeps pushing through because he doesn’t want to stop. For once, it’s silent. </p><p>But one thing he isn’t so used to is the friendliness and genuine respect this base contains, and finds it oddly comforting and nice that all these people seem to have put their differences aside and do this instead and he for once just accepts that things work a certain way here and doesn’t try and get more information than what they are comfortable giving, from people, even when he wants to.</p><p>A few weeks in he meets Ives. Ex military, thick southern London drawl, gruff as hell, a bit of an asshole at times and someone who seems hellbent on understanding everything he can about inversion and inverted entropy of objects and all other stuff physics that happens to be Neil’s specialty. When Ives touches base he makes sure to teach him as much as he can about everything in exchange for details of what his missions consist of. It takes Ives some wearing down before he reluctantly agrees, muttering under his breath about foppish british boys who should have no reason for also being clever. Neil takes it with stride and hides his laughter when he hears it.</p><p>After a while Ives takes up running with him, shouting such bad insults at Neil when he’s slacking that if his body was in full capacity he would deck him in the face. It works though, and he slowly but steadily regains his strength and feels much better than he has in a long time.</p><p>On Thursday morning he sets his own record when it comes to running 5 kilometers and when he’s done, chugging water down like a mad man, he is met by Henrik who looks at him in approval before he falls into step with him, walking back into the base.</p><p>“He wants to see you.” Neil doesn’t need to ask who he means by He and wonders if he has time to shower before that. “He wants to see you in the training facility.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Didn’t tell me much, just to relay that information to you. I’m assuming you can find your way.”</p><p>Neil nods, he knows the way, has been in there a few times by now when he can’t sleep to run on the treadmill and is by now becoming pretty familiar with the place. He hasn’t seen Him in a while and he realises now that he doesn’t even know what His name is, and can’t help but wonder if anyone within TENET knows what it is. But when Neil gets to the room He’s already there, stretching on one of the mats which is a strange sight to Neil, the suit gone and the tightly wound professionalism absent at the moment, present instead is something that looks a little like playfulness along with the ease that only working out can make you feel. Neil’s fascinated by it.</p><p>“Morning.” He says when he spots Neil and stands up.</p><p>“Morning.”</p><p>“I hear you’re regaining your strength, mostly back to 100% now I understand it.” Neil shrugs, he’s getting there.</p><p>“I don’t need to see your shooting skills, they are adequate enough for TENET, it’s your sparring technique I’m more interested in.” Again there’s an insult thrown at him that doesn’t feel like one, instead the need to prove himself and learn how he can improve are what makes itself present to Neil, along with self satisfaction that this man feels the need to see his progress for himself, rather than having someone else do it for him. He takes it for what it is and gets up on the mat without saying anything. The man smirks and he falters for a moment, so shocked at seeing it on him, making him look more handsome than he’s ever seen him before that he forgets what he’s here to do.</p><p>Wow he manages to think before they get started.</p><p>Neil knows hand to hand combat is his weakest skill, if it can even be classified as such. He’s gotten by on his brain and wits before, well enough at least until Cambodia when it went tits up and while fighting is like learning to cycle he’s rusty after the break he’s had. That becomes evident pretty quickly between them, as Neil struggles to keep up with Him and his intense unwavering concentration that doesn’t break for a second as he puts Neil on his ass for what feels like the 100th time today. </p><p>“Concentrate Neil, look at my body, my hands, how they move to try and anticipate what I’ll do next. Not my eyes, they won’t be telling you anything.” He chides giving Neil his hand to pull him up. Neil quickly pulls on his hand, drags him down and manages to surprise him with the move which makes him end up on his back. It startles a laugh out of the other man but who regains himself just as quickly and while on his back blocks one of Neil’s punches to his head before he rolls away and gets to his feet once again. Slowly Neil gets up, his eyes never leaving the other man who is staring right back, intensely. Neil’s never really understood the whole thing with fighting being anything other than something used to survive. Until now, the air between them is full of tension, eyes never leaving the other, trying to anticipate the next move and circling around each other like a lion does to a prey and<br/>
Neil’s struck by how hot it is and loses concentration for what feels like a minute, which probably isn’t much more than a few seconds, but enough for the man to seize his chance and strike out. </p><p>It sets off a match between them that lasts for minutes longer than the rest, mostly due to Neil’s stubbornness at refusing to lose this time, throwing out random jabs and punches that lack coordination which ultimately also ends with Neil on his back, the man’s foot gently pressed down on Neil’s chest, but strong enough to keep him there. Neil’s panting hard, way more out of breath now compared to the runs he’s been going on recently, sweat clinging to every inch of his body. He feels at least a little bit of pride by the sight of the man who is in a similar state to Neil, looking at what Neil thinks is pride at him before he gently pulls him to his feet. He throws one of the two water bottles to Neil who catches it and wipes at his face with the small towel that’s laying by his stuff and fights down the urge to sit down, rest and die. </p><p>“Good job.” The man compliments and Neil’s face heats at the praise that seems to be genuine, radiating off the man like he’s really truly proud Neil managed to lose to him all morning.</p><p>“Thanks.” Neil mutters and the man smiles again, his eyes crinkling, the sadness that’s often present gone in this moment. </p><p>“But I will assign you someone to spar with once every day too, you’ll need it for what’s to come.”</p><p>Neil wants to ask questions but knows he won’t be told anything even if he were to ask about what it is that’s to come, expecting he’ll be told he has to pass the assessments, so he doesn’t say anything, takes another sip of water and looks at the man until he’s the first to look away, something flashing quickly before his eyes that Neil can’t exactly figure out what it is before it’s gone. </p><p>“How are you finding the place?” </p><p>“Could be worse.”</p><p>“Yes it’s not the Ritz.”</p><p>“It’s definitely not.” The man snorts and Neil wants to hear it evolve into a full blown laughter. He bites down hard on his lip. </p><p>“It’s growing on me.” Neil offers.</p><p>“It tends to do that. We’ll move out soon though, this place is only used for emergencies really and at times recruitment.”</p><p>“So why was I taken here?”</p><p>“Because Henrik was here and he’s the best doctor we have, and it was an emergency.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Why what?”</p><p>“Why do I feel like I was such a high priority?” The same look again flashes across the man’s face, sadness, fondness, maybe even longing before he grimaces and schools his features back to what Neil calls normal or slightly aloof, not to be mistaken for unfriendliness but rather a measured attachment meant to keep people at a distance. </p><p>“We recruit a certain type here, maybe you’ve noticed that. We couldn’t do what we did if that wasn’t the case, if the people working here didn’t commit completely or believed in what we’re trying to achieve. You fit the type, that’s why you’re here.”</p><p>Neil frowns and can’t say whether that’s true or not when he barely knows the people around the base, but he does recognize some truth in the man’s statement, as he’s absolutely convinced TENT couldn’t have operated they way they have, secret, effective and everywhere, if that wasn’t the case.</p><p>“What’s your name?” </p><p>The man studies Neil for a long time before he turns his back on him. Neil would think it to be rude but finds it kind of endearing too when the man stops by the door and half turns towards him.</p><p>“Pass the tests and I’ll tell you.”</p><p>Then he’s gone and Neil shakes his head but vows to hold him to that.</p><p>………</p><p> </p><p>He suddenly out of nowhere remembers Cambodia. He’s eating food, nothing is out of what he's learned to call ordinary and then it’s like someone just lifts the lid off a pot and the water overflows. He gasps, drops the knife and Ives gives him the strangest look.</p><p>“You alright?” He asks in his ‘I don’t really care tone but this affects everyone so spill’, and Neil struggles to remember that he’s in Finland and it’s cold, snowing and his breath fogs the air during his daily walks outside, and he’s not in a humid overheating city that makes it hard to breathe because there’s no space to exist other than close to other people. He shakes his head, forces a smile onto his lip and tells Ives to mind his own business. Ives eyes narrow, and Neil thinks he’ll push it, but he leaves it and they go back to eating in camraderlie silence. </p><p>He remembers Phnom Peh and his contact being late which made the hair on his neck stand up in worry and a little bit of fright. He knew something was wrong when he didn’t show up at the time they had set up three days prior to meet. It was supposed to be a simple tradeoff, Neil needed the harddrive containing the names of compromised agents within MI6 that he and his team had been trying to flush out for months and in exchange Neil would give the man protection, a new identity, all of that. The connection to his team had somehow been severed, no one replying when he tried to get in contact with them and he started moving away from the busy market place, knowing he needed to get away from such an exposed place. He’d been here for 2 days prepping and as soon as he’d set foot in the country he’d felt claustrophobic. He knew he was being followed on the street he was currently on, and tried his hardest to tamper down the urge to start running.</p><p>Neil wasn’t a superstitious man by nature, but ever since he had promised his mother to carry the phone with him wherever he went, he had, even when he was out in the field. It became a habit impossible to shake even though he hadn’t ever used it before. He felt it in his pocket and just for a second felt his resolve falter as he flipped it open. It still had a signal and he hesitated only a moment before pressing the call button on the one number it contained. He lets it ring for three signals before he scoffs at himself and hangs up and pockets it back up, feeling stupid all of a sudden. He sees the end of the swarming marketplace, the road busy but less crowded and starts heading that way.</p><p>This was supposed to be easy and quick, but instead someone must have talked and the next thing Neil remembers when he finally gets to the road is a car driving up, not caring about the onlooking people and someone hitting him in the back of the head with something blunt and harshly shoving him into the back of a car. He must hit his head on the windowsill, his vision so blurry he thinks he might throw up from the impact. What follows is one of the worst car rides Neil’s ever had before, his motion sickness so extreme he can’t focus enough to count how many people are in the car with him. He hears the men speak, understands that it’s khmer but can’t make out anything other than that he’s being taken somewhere. They’ve been hired by someone else though, he doesn’t have time to think about who. </p><p>What follows makes his stomach churn uncomfortably and he still remembers how the air had smelt like blood and gunpowder, and of course the goddamn pain he’s forgotten until now. In the warehouse he sees his contact, tied to a chair, blood still pouring out of the dead man, flies buzzing around him and Neil fights back the urge to throw up in the chair he’s tied to. </p><p>He holds out surprisingly long he thinks afterwards, considering he actually didn’t know shit about what they wanted to know. </p><p>Just before he passes out he sees his mother and he thinks if he’s going to be reunited with her it’s not a bad way to die. </p><p>………</p><p>Neil passes the assessments mostly pain free. It’s conducted in three parts, with the first one logical based which he could do with his eyes closed. Second is getting through a simulation meant to show off fighting skills and shooting techniques which he flies by.</p><p>It’s when he gets to the last part, inversion, that he has a moment of such strong doubt he’s ready to be taken out of it and admit defeat. It’s the same as part 2 only inverted, and Neil’s hit by such motion sickness it gives him a fucking flashback of Cambodia again, the mask making him feel like he’s about to suffocate and throw up inside of it and his hands shaking so much the gun he is holding is threatning to slip from his fingers. He crouches down, puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes, concentrating on breathing through it and just getting through the test, no matter what score he gets. If he can only get through it, that will be enough. </p><p>He starts to think of his mother and her laughter which he can under normal circumstances not remember but hears as clearly as if she would be in the same room as him, and he thinks of them dancing in the kitchen in their home and being happy, and then he forces himself to stand up on shaky, unsteady legs and push through.</p><p>On the other side of the turnslide He’s waiting, smile a little tight around the edges but he clasps Neil on his shoulder, his hand lingers for longer than what’s necessary and tells him welcome to TENET.</p><p>It’s then it all really begins, the work. </p><p>Almost 4 months after Neil went into a coma he re-enters the real world again. He’s changed and it hasn’t, still feels the same, which makes Neil feel like a stranger when he enters his old apartment in London, that’s been left the same as how he left it, gathering dust and spider webs while he’s been gone. </p><p>He finally learns what His name is too.</p><p>John.</p><p>“John?”</p><p>“What, you expected it to be something different?” John actually grins making Neil grin back.</p><p>“Maybe, possibly something like Caesar.”</p><p>“Caesar got stabbed by his senators 23 times, not sure I like the implications of that name.”</p><p>“Balthazar then.”</p><p>“Better, I have been called vise from time to time.”</p><p>It was such a strange conversation for them to have, easy, funny and less fraught with tension than normally between them and Neil feels for a moment like they were on the same page, John’s face alive with laughter, instead of slightly downturned in what he thinks is grief.</p><p>He wonders if John’s lost someone and that’s why he seems to keep people at an arm’s length most of the time, that during the rare times he actually smiles it’s not always genuine and why he seems adamant on often doing things on his own. During the months he works with John he can’t help but create a mental list of all the things he notices about him. While John enjoys planning and structure he thrives under pressure. He comes alive in ways he doesn’t otherwise, while still being collected and calm. He’s a steady presence in Neil’s life that’s feeling more and more unsteady as the months go by, like the only thing tethering him back to earth after each inversion is him. At each waking moment John seems ready to jump into action himself and the way he conducts himself around people with an almost fairy tale chivalry, treating everyone he meets with a respect Neil doesn’t always think they deserve. He’s assured, assertive but not arrogant or cocky and he wears a tailored suit almost as well as Neil himself does and he knows his way around a gun like it’s an extension of his hand. He’s also smart, not as smart as Neil is but that’s difficult to be, instead he’s just knowledgeable about everything which seems to come as natural to him as breathing. Neil knows how to be charming, how to talk about art and traveling and the fucking economy if he has to, but John does it all so effortlessly and he’s so good at it, talking and listetning and engaging others that Neil envys everyone who is on the recieving end of it, even though it’s fake, and when it’s over John fixes his face back to neutral, like the switch has been turned off and he can go back to being slightly distant, the encounter to him being nothing other than professional. </p><p>He’s also dangerous, Neil finds that out too.</p><p>Neil absurdley enough feels like a high school boy with a fucking crush, something he’s never really experinced before, rather he’s more often than not been on the other end of the whole thing. He’s used to being wanted and when he can barely get a read past John’s facade of mild amusement he gets possibly a little obsessed. Not in a creepy way, just in a ‘I want to take you to bed and see what kind of noises I can draw out of you’ obsessed because someone built like John, he can only imagine that the sex must be intense as hell. </p><p>But then it’s not just that either. Neil sees it, zones in on it after barely any time spent with John, because Neil knows it all too well. John is lonely, and he wears it like a shield to protect himself against everything and everyone in this world. Loneliness was Neil’s closest companion for years after his mother died. He lost touch with everyone he knew, and he had random sex from time to time with people with blurry faces he doesn’t even remember if he tries to, when he felt like he needed some sort of connection, and poured his heart and soul into the work so it would distract him from his empty apartment and the black hole inside of him threatning to pull it with him. People had tried for a while to engage with him but Neil had pushed them all away until no one was left but himself. It’s eye opening seeing it reflected back at him through John and he feels a strange sort of need to do something about it. But he would be the biggest hypocrite in this whole world if he tried offering advice to a man he essentially was for years before this, is still to an extent, because he hasn’t stopped being a workaholic, he hasn’t stopped drinking vodka as a supplement for dinner on most evenings and he is still in constant movement so he doesn’t have to think about the loneliness that makes his skin crawl in such discomfort he wants to be someone else for a while. </p><p>Bad habits die hard and all that, because even though he’d want to possibly change a little, he wouldn’t know where to begin.</p><p>He likes working with John though, thinks John does too, and over the months they become a team, one that understands each other beyond words and normal communication. In the field John is easy to read and Neil understands what he needs without it being said. It goes the other way around too, even when sometimes Neil doesn’t even know what he wants, John seems to. It’s thrilling and it’s new and exciting and the missions they conduct together are sometimes so complicated and advanced and let’s not forget dangerous that he spends hours afterwards trying to come down from the high of them. When Neil finds himself in the field without John it’s like he’s missing a limb, the missions running less than smooth according to him. He has one massive fuck up when he’s inverted with a guy called ‘Richard’, they lose the hard drive containing coding that’s going to be sold to a terror group that will use it to hack into a company that sells weapons, that when they are univerted he’s is so furious he’s close to punching Richard in the face.</p><p>It turns into an ugly screaming match and Richard is red faced with murder when Sheila and John drag him out of the room and Neil is so angry, frustrated and disappointed at the whole mission, which he and Richard along with the team have spent weeks planning, he doesn’t really know what do with it all.</p><p>“He didn’t fucking listen.” He yells in John’s face who has nothing to do with this, but Neil’s so angry and John is the closest one for the outlet he needs for his anger that’s suddenly boiling underneath his skin.</p><p>“I know.” John’s calm, his emotions kept in check and it makes Neil even angrier. </p><p>“We’ve gone through this a million times, he endangered the whole team with the stunt he pulled, he went fucking right!”</p><p>“I know.” He says again and Neil snaps around, something in John’s voice making him turn around, his pacing abruptly stopping. </p><p>“What do you mean you know?”</p><p>John has a conflicted look on his face before he controls his features again and Neil feels anger rise in his chest.</p><p>“It was a test?” It’s meant to sound angry, but he thinks it sounds accusing, he feels the betrayal burn hot in his stomach, can’t seem to wrap his head around John misleading him like this. </p><p>“It wasn’t designed to be a test Neil. But I needed to see what would happen if I wasn’t in the field with you and you were put under pressure. What you would do if things didn’t go right. So yes I paired you up with Richard knowing you’d hate each other’s guts the moment you met to confirm my suspicions.”</p><p>“Fuck you.” Neil does catch the regret on John’s face but in the moment he doesn’t care. He’s angry yes, but he feels more betrayed than anything which is way worse than anger. What’s worse yet is that John doesn’t fucking owe him anything, John is his superior and in any other situation something like this would have been expected. But Neil feels special, well felt special, and now he suddenly doesn’t. Now he feels like any other recruit that’s just been tossed aside, his services used up. He throws the mask on the ground and walks out, can’t take being in this room anymore.</p><p>“Would you like to know if you passed?” John says when he’s by the door, and despite himself he does, still wanting this man’s approval.</p><p>“I didn’t just test you, I tested Richard too. He failed and will be reprimanded accordingly. You passed Neil, got the team out through the other side safely. But what you just did now, exploding at Richard like this, is not acceptable, I hope you get that?”</p><p>“Yes Boss.” He says venomously and pulls the door shut angrily.</p><p>Normally Neil would drink himself stupid, find a bar and go home with a guy to take the edge off and distract him from everything. Old Neil would have done this. This Neil paces the apartment he’s in, walks back and forth and even goes as far as the kitchen to take out the bottle of vodka he has for emergencies and stares at it for a long time before he takes a big sip and regrets it immediately. He picks up his phone instead and calls Ives who he knows is in town. He doesn’t care that it’s 2AM and when Ives gruffly replies, he tells him to meet him for a run in 20 minutes and threatens to kill him if he doesn’t show up. Ives does, looking like Neil’s dragged him out of bed but he does as he’s been told and runs with Neil silently for a while, until he starts throwing insults that Neil feels does not have Ives heart in it, but he appreciates nonetheless because it feels somewhat normal. After 40 minutes Neil cracks a smile and Ives looks a little relieved before he hides that behind his cold exterior. They run for one and a half hour and when Neil gets back to the apartment he’s so tired he falls asleep immediately.</p><p>The next day there is a meeting he needs to attend and he has a quick shower and makes sure to dress up nicely for his own benefit rather than anyone else’s, before he leaves. His adrenaline from the day before has dissolved and what’s been left is embarrassment and a little bit of shame too. Blowing up at superiors, who made the right decision considering, is not what he does. He tends to be sarcastic, a little passive aggressive but rarely so angry he blows a fuse. God, he wants to sink through the ground and die a little bit, regret over how he handled it making him feel like a fucking idiot. Things are fine at the meeting, either everyone’s acting normal because they’ve been told so by John, or the things that went down during the inversion have been kept under wraps.</p><p>He sips the shit coffee he bought on the way and throws John discrete looks over the mug, hoping to be able to read something but finds nothing other than intent concentration as he listens to a plan beginning to take shape. Neil barely hears anything and when the meeting is finally over 2 hours later he prepares to get John’s attention.</p><p>Of course John beats him to it.</p><p>“A moment Neil, if you have it?” He nods mutely and John waits until the room’s been vacated before he asks Neil to follow him to his office. The office, just like in Finland is sparse too, not as bad as it maybe, but it does look like it hasn’t been used in a while either and he can’t help to wonder where John actually spends his time working. Neil sits down, the scene reminiscent of Finland too.</p><p>“I know I must seem unjust to you Neil and that you’re angry at me. I admit I could have possibly handled it all a little better and I am sorry about that. I’m not however sorry that I put you through a test designed to showcase your flaws, and while you don’t have many, you do have some, just like the rest of us. I don’t have the time to argue with you or for you to be angry at me. You don’t either, I’m hoping we can move past it and forget it.”</p><p>A lot of thoughts rush through Neil’s head at the moment, one of them is deep seated confusion as to why John’s not benching him for the foreseeable future and why John does look at him with true and honest regret beneath his professionalism and he feels both relief and regret too. Relief that while John can act all high and mighty but still be affected by Neil and regret that John’s been feeling contrite over what to Neil has felt like a very one sided argument. Right now John’s looking at him with concern and expectation and Neil realises he’s been silent like an idiot for too long.</p><p>“Yeah yes, of course. Water under the bridge and all that.”</p><p>John looks relieved and Neil wonders if he expected Neil to want to fight over it some more, but he smiles and Neil thinks he’s beautiful and ugh no he reminds himself, this is not the moment to be thinking about his boss like that. He’d rather think about John in terms of sex and hotness because those are emotions he’s used to feeling around other men and he can play it off as a chemical reaction from his brain triggered by the close proximity he’s experinced with John over the last few months and not think closer about what it might actually be.</p><p>He refuses to dignify his own mind with that poisoned word. </p><p>“Perfect.” John says and interrupts the beginnings of Neil’s anxiety attack.</p><p>“Perfect.” Neil forces his voice to remain normal and he gulps down all feelings of unease and watches John look like he sees right through him but doesn’t comment on it which Neil isn’t sure is better or worse.</p><p>……..</p><p>Neil gets it out of his system the only way he knows how. By going to a bar and picking up some dude that has a boring job in accounting and thinks he’s the king of the world while being overtly heterosexual in his mannerisms while also being glaringly in the closet at the same time. The sex is mediocre at best and Neil leaves the apartment as soon as they’re done and feels worse than he did an hour ago and thinks about that bottle of vodka that is still in his kitchen and makes it home and stares at it. </p><p>He chugs most of it down that evening. </p><p>While his private life feels very much like it’s unraveling, work life runs more smoothly than ever. It’s not awkward between him and John per say, but in the beginning it doesn’t feel like it did before either, John with a knowing look in his eyes and constantly looking on the brink of saying something every time Neil shows up feeling very much like the mud underneath someone’s shoe with Neil either leaving the room to avoid it or adds something thought out and clever to the conversation that demands John’s opinion and forces him to pay attention to that and not to Neil. As a diversion technique it hasn’t yet let him down.  </p><p>But work makes him so busy that neither he and John have the time to be trifled with whatever is going on with Neil, that they move past their little issue and get back to working together like they did before this all. Meticulously, ruthlessly and like a well oiled machine that knows the inner workings of the other person as well as they know themselves.</p><p>They are in Greece, it’s just him and John for a change, non inverted for once and tracking a scientist pretending to offer help to people fleeing war zones while conducting both illegal and horrendous experiments because they are vulnerable and without aid in their situations. It’s been a week and all they’ve managed to find are burnt down labs and photos scattered around as if to taunt them about always being one step behind. The scientist’s name is Mylz Karrén, a radical, kicked out of Harvard 12 years prior because he tried convincing the board to let him experiment on children with chromosomal abnormalities as a way of ‘fixing them’ from it. After that he disappeared from the face of the earth and has been laying low ever since. He seems to be funded by another radical white supremacy group set on ‘cleaning’ the earth of those they consider to be less than them by targeting minorities and those vulnerable to them. </p><p>Neil can describe this in one word. Horrendous. </p><p>It’s the third lab in 3 days that’s been emptied, blood on one of the operating tables still not dry and the room smelling like rotten flesh making them both gag. Neil grabs the wall and then retches, tries his hardest not to throw up, while John is vibrating with anger. He hits the wall in rage, smacks his fist against it until his knuckles come away bloody, mixing together with the dirt and grime like some sinister watercolour project. Neil watches John grimace in pain, grievance and uncontrolled frustration at yet again not being able to catch the guy who is responsible for this. Neil pockets the photos, can’t stand to look at them, before he takes out a lighter and drops it to the ground, knowing already that there won’t be any DNA traces left for them to collect. He stands by John in silence as they watch the place burn away its own existence before they both leave without a word to each other.</p><p>They’ve taken to sleeping in the same hotel rooms during this mission, both of them not feeling completely safe or at ease here in this place. What they’re doing is dangerous and while the group, calling themselves The Right Order, which is an absolutely ridiculous name, are often careful in leaving tracks, and the tracks they do leave are even harder to look at. They are careful and they plan the victims they choose, even though the victims they do choose are sometimes people who are under normal circumstances hard to get to. Which means Neil and John have an unspoken agreement to stay close together, not letting their guards down and doing it this way makes it easier for one of them to get some shut eye while the other keeps guard over the room. They sleep in shifts and Neil’s already mapped out the best escape routes from the room, memorising them so well he can escape in his sleep. There are leftover boxes on one of the chairs by the round table in the room, boxes that have stood there for a few days now because neither of them have had the energy to throw them out yet. They’re empty even though Neil hasn’t had an appetite since he got to Greece a week ago, and he’s extremely relieved they haven’t started to smell yet, he thinks he could never eat anything else ever again if that were the case.</p><p>The first thing John does is head to the bar, doesn’t seem to have time to either take off his shoes or his jacket nor get rid of the gun he’s carrying, and pours himself a drink. It’s sloppy and he spills some on his hand which he either doesn’t seem to care about or doesn’t notice and downs the glass of whiskey before he pours himself another and then seems to remember Neil’s still there and pours a glass for him too. He leaves Neil’s glass by the bar and then he takes the bottle and his own glass and sits down on the couch. There he takes off his shoes and then sits silently staring into the wall. Neil takes his shoes off and leaves them by the door and then walks up to the bar as well. When he takes a sip he notices his hands are shaking so much he can barely take a sip without the alcohol splashing everywhere. He grabs his own hand and forces it to remain still before he tries taking another sip. It goes easier and the alcohol burns its way down his throat immediately making him crave more. He goes to sit down beside John and they sit in a silence fraught with tension and unease. When Neil finishes his glass he holds it out for more, doesn’t care that he’s drinking on the job and John’s eyes snap to his.</p><p>It does worry him somewhat that John is however drinking on the job though. He’s always been so put together, so untouchable in many ways and Neil’s only ever seen him drink once or twice ever before and always stopping after one glass and drinking either water or diet coke after that. John looks down at Neil’s hands, which are still shaking and then looks up to meet his eyes before an unreadable look takes over his face. Neil really doesn’t want to ask John to pour him a drink, but he’s tethering on unravelling completely that he needs something to take his mind off disemboweled children and naked abused women or so help him. John pours him the alcohol and Neil releases the breath he was holding. With each sip his hands shake a little less and he feels himself slowly coming back to himself, little by little.</p><p>Neil’s still wrapped up in his own head, so much so that he doesn’t notice John’s hand landing gently on his shoulder. It sends him reeling, sending the glass to the ground which clatters loudly but doesn’t break, before John gives him an apologetic look and Neil feeling his cheeks heat in embarrassment as he tries controlling his frantic beating heart. This mission has unsettled something inside of him, uprooted every sense of privilege and safety he’s ever felt in his life and been replaced by a deep seated hatred for the cruelty of humankind. Ever since Neil’s mother died he’s cared less and less about everything, none the least himself and what he really wants and needs in life in order for what makes him forget about feeling shit all the time. Even working for MI6, he did it with a detached sense of justice, professional sure, but he didn’t care much about it at the end of the day. </p><p>Neil realises strangely enough he’s managed to feel very sheltered in the shitshow that is this world and he wants what he does to matter all of a sudden. He wants to make a difference. It’s a strange sort of revelation to have on this couch in Greece with John by his side, alcohol in hand and looking at Neil like he's trying to solve some sort of puzzle. But who else other than John would be fitting for Neil to have this realization with, who is the epitome of all that Neil’s just realising. John cares and Neil somehow wants to as well, even when it hurts, it’s better than what he’s done before.</p><p>“I -”</p><p>“I know.” John says, strong and steadfast and Neil wonders if he really does know but doesn’t have time to think about it because suddenly John is pulling at his shoulder and Neil doesn’t really understand what he wants but he shifts and then both of John’s arms wind around him.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>He realises he’s getting hugged. Neil can’t remember the last time he got hugged and it takes him a moment to hug John back, something so strange, and simple in many ways, and soft but beautiful shared between them. It’s nice, really nice and they sit for a while, breathing in and out in sync and when they part Neil thinks the hug was just as much for him as it was for John. </p><p>After, Neil showers and John goes out to get them food. The room is empty when Neil steps out, only a towel around his hips. There is a full body mirror at the other end of the room and Neil steps close. He needs a dye and a haircut, probably needs to shave back the stubble that’s growing too long too. His eyes find the scar that runs along his body which has healed well by now. Henrik did a good job stitching him up and in some places it’s hard to even see it if the light doesn’t catch it just right. He’s had to learn to live with it, being in this field it’s impossible not to have some of these, even when they are big and ugly and come from torture. He looks away and gets dressed.</p><p>That night Neil sits guard, fiddling with a rubik's cube he’s solved so many times by now he could do it in his sleep while scrolling through the news on his phone just to have something to do. He can’t risk falling asleep. On one of the beds, John’s twitching, his eyes moving underneath his eyes in such a way Neil’s sure he’s dreaming. Suddenly though John sits up, gasping desperately for breath sounding very much like he can’t breathe, like he’s lost his oxygen mask while inverted. Neil shoots up in a second and runs the short distance over.</p><p>“John?” He asks purposely loudly so John will hear. He doesn’t seem to, eyes wide and frenzied and not looking at anything, making Neil think he’s either still dreaming or he doesn’t know he’s awake. </p><p>“John.” He tries again and takes a step closer. There’s sweat on his forehead, his breathing still erratic and wrong sounding to Neil. Neil reaches for his hand and squeezes it tight between his and John looks at him.</p><p>“Hi. You’ve had a dream, you’re okay.” John’s eyes focus and he draws in a breath of relief and seems to calm so Neil stays put, gently stroking his palm in his, trying to breathe in steadily in hope that John will copy it. They sit like this for a while, Neil getting a little distracted by being this close to John and not trusting his voice to bear just now. </p><p>“Fuck.” John whispers.</p><p>“Happens to everyone.” Neil says. “Nightmares have been a constant companion of mine as long as I can remember.” He says it for John’s benefit and can’t find it in himself to feel embarrassed by the confession. He doesn’t know why he’s shared something so personal, even though this is John, which is a weak spot of his. </p><p>John though, he nods like he already knows, or maybe he just understands what it feels like. Being alive and doing what John’s been doing for as long as he has, Neil guesses he’s been exposed to his own fair chair of horrible things that it warrants some night terrors of his own. </p><p>“This mission Neil, it keeps dragging up some not so nice memories of mine.” Neil’s surprised John’s shared something that can be considered personal between them too. He’s been tight lipped and a closed book for most of the time Neil’s known him and seems to live and breathe the TENET code of not sharing anything personal between colleagues. But this week has been fucking rough honestly, taking its toll on them both that they are beginning to crack under the pressure of it all. Neil isn’t surprised John’s had a nightmare, his only surprise is that it didn’t happen sooner and to Neil himself. </p><p>“You know how to solve one of these?” Neil asks and shows him the rubik’s cube as a distraction. John grins, and it’s not as easy around the eyes as it normally is, but it’s a genuine attempt from Neil to get John out of his head and it seems to be working.</p><p>“It’s all about pattern recognition and repeating the same motion as you go along.”</p><p>“Well you should be a pro then.” He teases and John rolls his eyes, but Neil doesn’t believe for a second that John would let himself be so easily taunted if he didn’t actually want to try and solve it. John takes it from him and then makes room for Neil to sit beside him. Neil’s brain freezes for a moment, but John doesn’t seem to notice with his attention securely on the cube in front of him and Neil slowly moves. The bed is thankfully not a single but they are both quite big and the fit is tight, Neil’s jean clad leg brushing up on John who is in sweatpants, a fancy brand but still sweatpants, and it’s so strange and arousing and confusing that Neil bites the inside of his cheek so hard he almost draws blood and then opens up his sudoku app on his phone to play a game, in this moment it’s the least sexy thing he can think of that will do the trick. </p><p> </p><p>……..</p><p> </p><p>They catch the guy, eventually. It’s too long until it happens but once they are done Neil doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse that the man is dead. His only wish is that he would have suffered more for what he’d done. It had ended in a shootout, the options of places to hide soon running out for him and he and John had caught up with the man and the team he had with him. They leave all the evidence they have gathered during the time they’ve spent chasing him and then call the authorities. He sees John take a ring off the finger of Karrén and vows to ask him about it once they are back to safety.</p><p>Karrèn had refused to give up the name of the organisation funding him and it grates on Neil’s nerves endlessly that they didn’t have the time to get it out of him, even if both he and John are convinced it’s The Right Order. But if Neil thinks it grates on his consciousness it’s nothing in comparison to John who shuts himself away in the office he rarely uses for three days straight afterwards refusing to see anyone during that time. When he reemerges again, he’s put together, all planned smiles and cool demeanor that Neil sees through, sees the cracks as clear as day and can’t help but notice the tiredness and heaviness around him immediately, and thinks the others cannot be as ignorant to it either. This John is painstakingly different to the man just a month ago.</p><p>One morning when Neil’s in early, John makes himself a cup of tea, his hands shaking so hard the teaspoon falls out of his hand, but Neil catches the teaspoon he’s dropped, puts it gently down by his cup, gives him a small smile and a secretive look, before he walks out and doesn’t mention it to anyone or John that he’s seen the cracks close by. </p><p>But Neil promises not to dwell on it, he really does, only the issue is that now that he’s seen another part of John in Greece, less put together and rougher around the edges the crush he clearly has on the man is threatening to develop into something else. Something he hasn’t felt in ages because he promised that after his mother’s death that letting people in, to allow them close and for Neil to love anyone again, would never happen.</p><p>Neil looks at John and knows he’s fucking screwed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay I realise I've had to up the tags and warnings for this chapter because it got a bit darker then I had anticipated, so if you feel it's going to be triggering for you I advise you maybe not to read this one, or wait until the last parts are up before you do&lt;3 &lt;3 I want everyone to take care of themselves and be kind to themselves &lt;3</p><p>I had planned for this to be a two part series but this part once I started writing, got sooooo long lmao and I felt like I couldn't fit everything into this part so I decided to split it into two instead.</p><p>Last part was a very introspected chapter in many ways, in this one I had to add in more plot and more dialogue and move the story towards the film and what happens in it. Also I will have gotten some things wrong about the film in this chapter I am sure, I haven't seen it in ages so that is why, please don't be too hard on me for that.</p><p> </p><p>In this chapter:</p><p>-A mission in Barcelona</p><p>-Neil thinks about his past</p><p>-A conversation changes everything</p><p>-Neil gets a visit from his past</p><p>-Tragedy strikes, enjoy...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neil remembers being 15 and confused all the time. He remembers being more clever than everyone around him, finding no joy or meaning to the things his life was full of at the time. He also remembers looking at girls and not understanding why he should want to be close with one. At a school party he remembers a girl called Alice dragging him away from the music and the popcorn and the watchful eyes of the parents to an empty hallway to be alone with him. She had kissed him and Neil had awkwardly done it back, having no clue of what to actually do. He remembers thinking it felt like a snail was crawling all over his lips.</p><p>During that time of Neil’s life his mother had started leaving the house on a regular basis and Neil often spent the days and some evenings alone on the couch watching TV and eating cookies and candy for dinner. His mother was in the beginning stages of opening up a non profit organisation where a percentage of the money from her precious art dealings and sellings would go towards it. The organisation worked closely together with other organisations that supported women in abusive relationships and Neil knew his mother needed this project above everything else at the time. She was passionate about it, cared about other women who had ended up in relationships they couldn’t get out of and Neil had watched her grow confidently into the role of caretaker and leader of the startup, that he didn’t mention anything about feeling a little overwhelmed and unwell all the time. </p><p>She had also picked up a camera for the first time in ages and slowly started to take photos again, something that too kept her busy and happy and Neil would never rob her of that, no matter how lonely he felt.</p><p>A consequence of being as clever as Neil was, was that he was incredibly bored all the time and so one thing led to another as a consequence of it and he developed some neat skills in picking locks. He’d seen one video on youtube and that had led to another and another and then become a full time obsession that distracted him enough for everything else to fall away. He started with easy locks first, gardens and gates and doors inside his own house and then pushed himself further and harder when he could pick those in his sleep. He started breaking into houses, not to steal anything, just to see if he could do it, the reward was the rush of adrenaline he felt every time he managed to pick a difficult lock and he spent hours trying to come down from the high, only to chase it again the next day. </p><p>He did it for months without getting caught and his mother continued to be unaware but must have noticed him suddenly being much more at ease at home, something that made her happier too and Neil didn’t feel the need to break the unspoken agreement between them with his issues. </p><p>It continued for a while longer until he made a mistake. The mistake happens because he gets cocky and doesn’t spend enough time scouting the house out to see if it’s empty. It’s not so Neil comes face to face with a boy about his age with a shocked expression on his face while looking like he doesn’t belong in this house any more than Neil does at the moment, with his scruffy jeans and worn down Converse. Neil doesn’t stay long enough to think more about the boy before he opens the window he just came through and takes off running down the street. He stops when he thinks it’s safe enough, the distance from the guy long enough, exhausted with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.</p><p>“Hey you!” Neil spins around, suddenly terrified that he’s gotten caught.</p><p>“What were you doing over there?”</p><p>“What were you doing over there? You don’t look like you belong in a house like that.” Neil accuses back.</p><p>“I teach their daughter english two times a week.”</p><p>“Oh.” He says dumbstruck and foolishly. Neil’s too tired to run again and the boy’s a little taller than what he is, he doubts he can outrun him again. </p><p>“So what were you doing?” Neil hesitates to answer, thinks about his chances of outrunning the boy yet again so he doesn’t have to answer while the boy crosses his arms expectantly.</p><p>“You know breaking and entering is illegal right, I could call the cops on you.”</p><p>“Please don’t call the cops.” Neil cracks, thinks about the phone call his mother will get and how upsetting it will be for her. “I wasn’t doing anything I swear. I just like breaking into houses to see if I can. I don’t steal anything and then I just leave again.”  </p><p>“That’s odd.” The boy comments but he chuckles too, making his face light up with laughter lines. He’s pretty Neil observes and thinks what the fuck the next moment. </p><p>“Maybe. But my mom will be really upset if she finds out and I don’t want to make her sad, so please don’t tell anyone.” Neil begs and the boy grows serious studying Neil’s face for lies.</p><p>“Okay I won’t. Just don’t do it again.” He says and Neil swears he won’t.</p><p>“What’s your name?”</p><p>“Max, what’s yours?”</p><p>“Austin.” </p><p>And that’s how Neil meets Austin, his first and only serious boyfriend.</p><p>They start spending a lot of time together after that and Neil finds a much better distraction to occupy his time with. And he likes Austin, likes it when Austin asks him questions about science and how to explain how it all hangs together. Austin is into books and he loves reading so in return he teaches Neil about poetry and writing and sometimes when they hang out together they read in comfortable silence. It’s nice, Austin, while older than Neil, is sweet and Neil feels seen around him in ways he hasn’t felt before. Austin is also gay and he talks about how he refuses to be ashamed for who he is and some of that rubs off on Neil who later in his grown up life thanks to Austin and his mother’s love doesn’t struggle with his sexuality, even though he sometimes struggles with who he is as a person and what he has become because of the choices he’s made, but it’s a separate issue all together.</p><p>….. </p><p>In Barcelona they are uninverted again. </p><p>Massive house, servers and cocktail attire, rich people as far as the eye can see, a beautiful terrace overlooking the sea and Neil’s pretty sure he’s spotted at least one player for Barcelona FC around somewhere. He can’t remember the last time he was at an event like this one, only that it’s been a while and he feels a little rusty when it comes to keeping up with the people around him. Neil for most of his childhood grew up ridiculously rich and has in the past attended many events like this one, it doesn’t matter the country, the drill is still the same. With his dad gone the events his mother attended reduced significantly but not even Katherine Barton could afford to spend all her life away from parties and events, being part of the aristocrat required she socialized from time to time with Neil by her side. Neil hadn’t liked it much, particularly not the food, as he much preferred Domino's pizza and cookies on the couch with an old film playing in the background as a Friday evening activity for the two of them. When he got older he almost always opted out and his mother had never pushed for him to go with her, even though he sometimes felt bad sending her into the wolf’s den on her own. </p><p>He’s clutching the champagne flute tightly as he watches John with Mila Santiago, tonight’s mark. He’s made sure to pick a spot that gives him a better view of the place, already having scoped out the best hiding places and exists where he stands, just out of sight from John on the stairs leading up to an open bar. Mila Santiago related to Juan Santiago, his niece to be precise and he’s the one they actually want. He’s just impossible to get to through ordinary means and this time around they can’t just sneak in spy style as Neil referred to it once during a meeting, so they have to take a detour through Mila. Juan Santiago isn’t actually a bad person, which is a change for once. He’s one of the better millionaires, built his fortune from scratch by working hard and understanding how the software industry operates and how to penetrate it. His software operation programme is massively popular within government agencies as well as private companies that want their online security protected as it’s so difficult to penetrate it through ordinary means. Mr. Santiago is also very picky in which he sells this programme to these days, which makes him endlessly sought after and impossible to get a meeting with. It’s not the programme TENET wants though, it’s his investment. In his spare time he invests pretty generously into small business owners to boost them on the market and donates to charities on a regular basis. Through normal means they have tried for months now to get a meeting with Juan Santiago without success, and John’s getting a little desperate as TENET is in need of funding, desperately so he’s told Neil, and an investment from Mr. Santiago would secure them for the foreseeable future.</p><p>So, that’s why they are here, so that they, through Mila, can get a meeting with the man himself, who is said to be attending this very event, but that isn’t looking very likely either. Rumour has it the man’s getting a bit senile and is planning to retire soon, which is why John wants the deal to go through as soon as possible, before the oportunity passes and he instead needs to go charm the pants of rich elitsts english bastards, which he hates appartently. </p><p>The only problem is, which is a massive one, is that Mila doesn’t seem to be interested in John at all. It’s absurd to Neil that no one, but particularly a woman, can take a look at John and not see that the man is gorgeous, he’s in a dark red suit for crying out loud and the woman’s barely looked at him. Her assistant though, a Pedro Cavallés, looks like he’s ready to get on both of his knees with the way he’s looking at him and it makes Neil’s skin crawl in jealousy and pettiness. He keeps his distance, doesn’t think he’ll have the restraint not to glare daggers into both Miss. Santiago and Mr. Cavallés or look at John with any subtlety while not getting discovered, so instead he keeps an eye on their surroundings while he tries not to down his third glass for the evening. John’s growing more and more frustrated though and while his attempts have been really subtle it’s either not subtle enough for Mila, or his attempts are just getting ignored purposely. He catches Neil’s eyes and then starts walking, leaving through the south entrance. Neil gives him almost 10 minutes before he follows.</p><p>John’s chosen a huge window overlooking the garden and the sea and Neil doesn’t stand too close when he finds him, takes out his phone and pretends to be texting when he gets there, even though the hallway is empty at the moment. </p><p>“This isn’t working.” And Neil’s relieved John’s the one to mention it so he doesn’t have to.</p><p>“It’s not no.”</p><p>“What about her assistant?”</p><p>“Newly hired. She tends to fire them when they hit a certain age apparently.”</p><p>“Does she sleep with them?”</p><p>“Hard to say, she seems to keep them pretty close by though.”</p><p>“And this one?” Neil isn’t surprised John’s notice the look in Pedro’s eyes and feels an unexpected flare of anger. </p><p>“This one is most likely gay, so I’d say no.”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Fuck I don’t have time for this.”</p><p>“You could try the assistant, he seems to be the best bet at the moment. Steal his phone and check his calendar to see if Mr. Santiago has something scheduled with his niece in the future.” Neil keeps his tone neutral, devoid of any feelings he particularly has about Cavallés.</p><p>“It seems it’s the only way at the moment.” John sounds resigned, and he claps Neil discreetly on the shoulder as he pockets the phone he was pretending to talk through and goes back to the party. Neil stays a while and as soon as John leaves he opens the window just so he can hear the sound of the waves hitting the shore, the repeating motion comforting in his growing discomfort. John going after Mila, who is clearly uninterested, is one thing, but him going after Pedro who very much is, frustrates and annoys Neil to no end. </p><p>When he goes back to the party and sees John talking with Pedro who is looking absolutely delighted that John is suddenly paying attention to him and Neil downs the rest of his champagne angrily. He turns around, not paying attention and stumbles straight into Mila Santiago of all goddamn people in here. She stumbles in surprise at the force and he reaches out and steadies her, more of a reaction on his part than a secondary thought, so she doesn’t fall. Her eyes snap to his, chocolate brown and big, giving her a doe like appearance. </p><p>“Sorry Miss.” Neil says and plasters on an apologetic look as he takes a step back to put some distance between them. Mila’s contrite face changes when she takes a good look at him and something a bit more friendly makes its way to her features.</p><p>“No, no worries, I’m the clumsy one I didn’t see where I was going.” Her Spanish accent is thick but the English runs off her tongue with ease. Neil realises he’s expected to speak back, to flirt and he’s so out of it and rusty he waits too long to see Mila’s face closing off again.</p><p>Fuck he thinks at the missed oppostunity. </p><p>“I’m sorry it was actually my fault. You’ll have to excuse my bad manners. I must admit I haven’t been to an event like this for quite some time. Where I spend my time the most exciting thing that happens is when the coffee maker isn’t working.” He looks sheepish and what he hopes for is kind and a bit dumb to lure her in. Mila’s face cracks after a while and she laughs genuinely.</p><p>“What do you do then Mr….?”</p><p>“Marcus, Marcus Stowell and I’m a scientist and researcher in molecular physics.” She looks impressed and a little endeared by this piece of information. </p><p>“Molecular physics, I admit I haven’t actually heard much about it.”</p><p>“Well we study molecules and the chemical bonds between atoms. It’s commonly used in spectroscopy and closely related to atomic physics but it all kind of overlaps really as I could talk your ear off about quantum mechanics too if you wanted.” He runs a hand through his hair and wishes he had glasses on to really sell the awkward but cute scientist persona he’s apparently going for, it seems to work on her so. She gives him a once over and he looks down at his suit which is grey, double breasted and really nice, probably too nice for someone like him.</p><p>“I have a friend who likes to dress up and do these kinds of things. He came with me to a convention earlier this week and I promised to do this with him because of it so...”</p><p>“And where is your friend right now then?”</p><p>“Probably chatting up some clueless woman he has no intention of marrying I’m afraid.” He shrugs and she laughs. </p><p>She’s pretty, freckles and red lips with a black off shoulder dress with a slit up one side and high heels on but still managing not to be very tall despite it. She knows she’s pretty though, knows she’s sought after and powerful but she isn’t the worst when it comes to these kinds of people. Neil wonders if she sees going after someone like Neil’s pretending to be, for fun or if she has a genuine interest in someone who doesn’t know who she is. Neil thinks if she was really that interested in meeting those kinds of people it wouldn’t be very hard to do, she could go to any decent bar and find enough people in there who would have no clue about who she is. </p><p>“He has come to the right place then, there are lots of people here looking to live a little on the edge tonight.”</p><p>“Oh yeah?”</p><p>“Oh yeah.” She takes a sip of whatever it is that she’s drinking herself and flashes him her doe like eyes over the glass and Neil thinks really? It was this easy.</p><p>He can’t remember the last time he seduced a mark, knows he hasn’t done it for a while for MI6 and doesn’t do this for TENET normally. Under other circumstances, those being his life, he wouldn’t mind doing this too much, but the thought of sleeping with her makes his skin crawl in discomfort. He finds he doesn’t want to do it, would rather be in a shootout than take the dress off her in one of the rooms he’s sure is even too elaborate for his own tastes, and he likes nice things. But it’s important, they need the money and Neil plasters on another fake smile that he hopes conveys shyness mixed with being intrigued by her. He can acknowledge she’s beautiful even though she’s not his type.</p><p>“I’m rusty in this apartment I’m afraid so I hope I’m not overstepping in assuming this is an invitation?” She lifts an eyebrow in what he thinks is surprise at his abrasiveness but Neil hopes it works to not beat around the bush with her. </p><p>“Would you like it to be?”</p><p>“I would, once I get your name.”</p><p>“Mila.” </p><p>“Mila.” She smiles, wide and unaware of his unfortunate underlying intentions. </p><p>“What do you have in mind?” </p><p>“I just need to clear something with my assistant and then I’d love to talk some more. Particularly about physics, you seem very knowledgeable in that department.”</p><p>“Depends on who you ask.” </p><p>“I like people who are knowledgeable about things they are passionate about. You can always tell when people love something, can’t you?”</p><p>“You can yes.” Neil says, a moment of honesty passes between them and she smiles again before she holds her arm out and Neil takes it without hesitation. Finding her assistant comes with finding John who seems to have Pedro wrapped around his fingers, hanging onto every word John’s saying. Neil genuinely has a moment to wonder if that’s what he looks like too when John talks. For the trained eye he thinks it must be. John’s eyes find him across the room and he stumbles where he stands, his mouth opening before he quickly regains his senses and he continues with the conversation he’s having. Neil’s sure he’s being watched out of John’s peripheral vision though. </p><p>“Pedro, I need you to clear my appointment with the hair saloon tomorrow, change it to later in the day. Be a darling and do that will you?” </p><p>Neil catches most of the sentence and Pedro does a double take before he blushingly stumbles for his phone in his inner pocket.</p><p>“Yes Ma’am.” John’s watchful eyes follow every movement on the phone before his eyes snap to Neil.</p><p>“Mate what are you doing here? I thought you’d find some pretty girl to spend the night with already.” Neil hopes John will catch on the hint and he does, but not before something dark and unreadable passes over his face as he looks between Neil and Mila. </p><p>“I was but then this charming man here started telling me all about the spring fashion this year, did you know red is a popular colour?” Mila looks uninterestedly at John, like she doesn't even remember him from earlier. And maybe she doesn’t, or maybe John’s not her type at all which is just absurd to Neil, but it makes his stomach churn uncomfortably either way, making him wish he had a drink</p><p>“I didn't. Bet you’re happy you chose that suit then?”</p><p>“What can I say I like being doted on.” Pedro smiles and he’s not Neil’s type but he seems like a pretty good guy considering and under different circumstances then maybe he wouldn’t mind the guy so much. </p><p>“I know you do.” Neil says, lets his eyes linger in approval on John, before he moves his eyes back to Mila and smiles. He’s surprised to see it’s made John falter for a moment, the man always so put together particularly when it comes to this setting, and he’s almost as surprised that he allowed himself to even do that, maybe he’s had more alcohol than he thought.</p><p>“Well it’s nice to meet you, I’ll see you tomorrow Pedro, and Max I hope you have a lovely evening.” Mila seems to have at least remembered John’s name and Pedro nods eagerly, like he can’t wait for Mila to get out of here so he can get back to enjoying John’s company in private. Just before they leave Neil catches John’s eyes, and he has no clue what he’s trying to convey or what John sees, but a look of deep concern passes over his face and he can see John looking more and more uncomfortable letting Neil walk away from him.</p><p>Neil is too, but he knows what’s at stake and he’s doing it not just for John, but for himself too. He wants TENET to have a future and he wants to be part of it, so sleeping with Mila is by far not the worst thing Neil’s done in this profession and it won’t be the worst thing he ever does either. He can live with this.</p><p>He has to.   </p><p>He follows her through a corridor and grabs a glass of champagne off a man with a tray that he downs immediately. Mila takes the grand staircase and it takes them up to a deserted hallway, no guests in sight and the noise from downstairs drowned out up here. She opens the door to a bedroom with a balcony, a king size bed in the middle of the room, lavish and huge, taking up most of the space by the wall with a bed drape hanging over it protectively. Neil breathes through his nose before he walks out towards the balcony to get some air. From here he can hear the ocean again and he leans forward, as if that will somehow bring him closer to it. Mila joins him, barefoot and a bottle of Bollinger in her hand with two glasses. She pops the cork and giggles childishly as the bubbles spill onto the balcony before she generously pours herself and Neil two glasses. Neil refrains from downing all of it in one ago again and sees Mila copy his position, looking at the view.</p><p>“The view is nice.” He comments and she nods, her far away look disappearing as her attention comes back to Neil.</p><p>“Yeah I like it too. I find the sound of the ocean to be very comforting, I always have.”</p><p>“I agree.”</p><p>“Who would have thought we would have had anything in common huh?”</p><p>“Yeah, who would’ve.” He tries not sounding sarcastic as he drinks some more and it grows silent between them, not awkwardly so, but a little strange. Neil knows how to do this, should steer this back to the bedroom and just get this whole goddamn thing over with, she likes him even though she doesn’t know him and he knows he can work with that.</p><p>He makes up his mind and downs the whole glass of champagne before he grabs her hand, not too gently, and she makes a surprise sound as he walks back into the bedroom. He closes the door with the back of his heel and steps in close, putting his hands around her waist. Her arms come around his neck automatically and she lifts an eyebrow.</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>“Hi.” He says, tries feeling excited over what’s about to happen. </p><p>“Nice move over there.”</p><p>“I’m rusty, but some of my skills are still intact.”</p><p>“I can see that.” He starts walking her backwards towards the bed, cupping her cheeks and she looks up at him expectantly, much shorter than him without her shoes on and he closes his eyes and dives in. She smiles against his lips and he tries not thinking about the time he was 15 and Alice had kissed him and it felt like a slug was inside of his mouth, but can’t help but let out a shudder she mistakes for excitement and she deepens the kiss further. Her knees hit the side of the bed and she sits down before he leans over her and covers her with his body, her hands making it up to his hair and messing it up while he keeps one hand on her waist and one cupping her cheek.</p><p>There’s the sudden sound of the fire alarm going off, ringing loudly inside of the room. She groans and he sits up, tries wiping her smudged red lipstick that is all over his mouth off and gets himself together.</p><p>“I’m sure it will be fixed in a minute.” He says, feeling the silk sheet twist underneath his palm, and she nods, but clearly she’s annoyed at being interrupted, a muscle jumping in her jaw. When the door bangs open loudly Neil’s one second away from drawing the knife he has hidden around his ankle when he sees it’s John, a bottle of wine in one hand swaying unsteadily on his feet. </p><p>“Neil, maaaateeee, there’s a fire.” He shouts and Mila covers her ears. “I was looking for you, come on, comeee on.” He takes another sip of the bottle and looks at Neil expectantly while he sways again. </p><p>“Uh.” Neil doesn’t know what to do in the moment. John giggles and starts playing with a dream catcher hanging on the wall and Neil groans.</p><p>“Sorry Miss, my friend he’s so drunk at the moment, I don’t think I can leave him like this.” It makes her frown and before she can say anything he gets up and grabs John roughly by the arm to drag him out the room. As soon as the door is closed, Neil despite himself, breathes a little easier and John’s eyes clear immediately and he drops the bottle to the ground, the sound echoing off the walls as he starts marching ahead of Neil, obviously furious.</p><p>“John.” Neil hurries to keep up with him but he isn’t stopping, almost running down the stairs, with Neil struggling to keep up. Downstairs the guests are leaving, it’s chaotic and claustrophobic with people pushing against one another and the sound of the fire alarm so loud it hurts his head, and he struggles even more to keep up with John who takes a right and rips the door to the kitchen open with Neil hurrying through it before it closes. John paces inside, all anger and dangerous energy strung tightly together.</p><p>“John, what the fuck?”</p><p>“Shut up.” </p><p>“No, what the fuck was that? We need that money, we’ve been waiting months for this.”</p><p>“I know!” </p><p>“Do you?!” Neil shouts back, can’t for the life of him understand why John is so angry at him, of all people.</p><p>“Yes I do, but this wasn’t the way.”</p><p>“This wasn’t the way? What the fuck are you talking about? This was the only way, you blew your own goddamn operation for what?” Neil feels sudden fury too, that John holds everyone to a ridiculously high standard under normal circumstances and when John himself makes a mistake as stupid as this one, then the consequnces be damned. </p><p>“I fucking know that, don’t remind me.”</p><p>“Then what the hell was this stunt you just pulled?”</p><p>John stops pacing, stares back at Neil with a pinched expression that’s bordering on pained and Neil doesn’t understand what is going on with John today, nor recently either if he’s completely honest.</p><p>“What?” He demands and John shakes his head.</p><p>“No, nothing.” He draws in a sharp breath, a shattered expression on his face before he pulls himself back together. </p><p>“No, no shutting me out. I’m not a fucking recruit anymore, and while you are my superior you’re acting like a subordinate right now so I’m not asking you to tell me what’s going on, I’m telling you to.” Neil snars, his patience snapped in half, so fucking done with John at the moment. </p><p>“Do not push me.” John warns and takes a step closer, making Neil square his shoulders, wondering for a quick moment if John’s going to punch him with the way he’s looking at him, dangerously and darkly. Neil doesn’t back down, just stares at Joh levelly as he falters, making a wounded sound in the back of his throat before he takes a step closer, so quick, Neil doesn’t have time to fully react to it before he presses Neil into the humming fridge and kisses him. It’s firm and a little possessive and much more put together than what John seemed to be a minute ago. It’s somewhat rough and doesn’t last long though, John steps back, eyes wild like he’s just now realised what he has done and he mutters fuck a few times underneath his breath, looks at Neil who has no clue what the hell he is looking like before John flees the room, leaving Neil in silence.</p><p>He realises the fire alarm has turned off.</p><p>He sinks down on the floor, can’t seem to care that it’s filthy and it’s going to ruin his expensive suit, as he tries to understand what the hell just happened. He realises that what he thought was John looking at him darkly like he wanted to hurt him, was actually want, deep seated want that Neil mistook for something else because he really couldn’t understand that John would look at him and want him back. </p><p>Fuck. </p><p>He had been so fucking floored by John he didn’t have the time to recouperate the fucking kiss. John kissed him and he didn’t do anything. What is wrong with him? The low ache of want he’s felt for John for months already surges up again tenfolded, arousal and lust mixing together along with shame and the word he hates so much.</p><p>Love.</p><p>Neil might as well admit as much to himself sitting on the floor in a dirty kitchen in a fancy villa in Barcelona, that he is in love with John. Brilliant, amazing, patient and kind John who has a bit of a sweet tooth, a discovery Neil really stumbled upon one late evening at the office where John was just so casually eating the third Mars bar for the evening while Neil was trying to do some work, he was really taken aback for a moment. It was endearing and it was hot and Neil is a fucking idiot.</p><p>He gets up from the floor and follows the same way John’s just left through and finds himself in a deserted hallway with only his footsteps echoing hauntingly as his company. He walks out onto the road that’s also empty, and turns right, keeps walking in the late night trying to figure out what the hell to do.</p><p> </p><p>…….</p><p> </p><p>It’s raining the day Austin breaks up with him. Neil hadn’t actually seen it coming, been so busy studying for his A levels and been neglecting a lot recently in order to achieve the grades he wants that it comes as a shock when it happens. He doesn’t sleep much, feels stressed all the time and only eats when his mother forces him away from his books and in front of a hot meal in the kitchen. His mother’s jacket is wet from the rain when she steps inside, shaking it off and folds the umbrella back in. She jumps in fright when she sees him, sitting underneath the coats, long legs in front of him, hoping to just sink through the floor and disappear.</p><p>“Sweetheart, what are you doing?” She drops everything she’s holding and crawls underneath where he is to sit beside him.</p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>“Austin broke up with me.” He says sadly.</p><p>“Oh baby, I’m so sorry.” She pulls him closer to her and he folds himself into her side.</p><p>“Did he say why?” Neil shrugs.</p><p>“He said he didn’t want to do a long distance relationship when he’s at uni.” He mutters sullenly. His mother is silent for a while and kisses the mop of hair on his head. </p><p>“I’m sorry baby.”</p><p>“I don’t understand though, I didn’t see it coming.”</p><p>“Sometimes you don’t and there’s nothing you can do about it and you’ll feel shit about it for a long time. But then you pick yourself up and move on from it. If he didn’t want to be together with you then that’s his loss.”</p><p>“You’re only saying that because you’re my mother and you have to.” She chuckles and hugs him closer.</p><p>“Maybe, but it’s also true. The ones that are real, they stay through it all, even when it gets tough, especially when it gets tough.”</p><p>“So he wasn’t the real deal?”</p><p>“You’re young baby, you’ll have lots of time to fall in love again, maybe a few times even and it will all be experiences that are worth having.”</p><p>“No, I don’t want to fall in love ever again. It sucks.” He mutters petulantly. </p><p>“I know, but you know what?”</p><p>“What?” He looks up, hopeful, meeting her clear blue eyes and she leans closer in like she’s letting him in on a little secret. </p><p>“Just because we’ve been hurt in the past doesn’t mean we give up. It means we grieve for a while and then we put on our brave faces and get back out there, okay?”</p><p>“Okay.” He whispers and they sit holding onto each other for a long time.</p><p>“Okay, my legs are starting to hurt, can we get up now and do this on the couch instead?” His mother breaks the silence and he laughs, but they move to the living room instead, light some candles and make tea and laugh together while Casablanca plays in the background.</p><p>The only problem though is that Neil goes a long time after that without letting himself fall in love with anyone. </p><p>……</p><p>He wanders around Barcelona for a long time thinking about his mother, his father, his life, things he doesn’t let himself dwell on and passes a few bars he considers entering to drink himself into oblivion. It’s always been what he does tough, drink away the troubles so he doesn’t have to deal with them or himself. It was working until it wasn’t anymore and he feels like time’s caught up with him on that front, that it’s not a valuable option on how to deal with things anymore, at least not for him. These days Neil feels like a different person, one that doesn’t try to burn both himself and everything around him and instead just gets on with it, because there are more important things that matter now. So he passes those bars and walks on.</p><p>Austin had hurt Neil and he had gone from the heartbreak directly to university and started sleeping around with other people the moment he got out of London, handling everyone he met like a coping mechanism for not dealing with the discomfort of being known, for being seen. When he was finally starting to open up to the idea of dating again his mother had died and Neil really had seen no point in it then. After his father’s death his mother had never met anyone new, or if she had she’d never told Neil about them, and apart from that Neil really had no role model for a healthy functioning relationship to model his own ones after so he just hadn’t bothered. Oxford hadn’t been bad though and he had some flings with guys he met, but he always became distant when they became more serious and his last two years he was way too consumed with his thesis anyway to be able to pay attention to a relationship.</p><p>So, Neil’s a fuck up essentially and because he is and has been for most of his adult life, what’s to say he won’t continue to be one going forward. The only constant comfort in Neil’s life recently has been this goddamn job that he hates and loves so much, because it’s as important as it is difficult sometimes, but beyond that it’s been life saving for Neil. And it comes with John who matters above all of it really but Neil pretends that doesn’t so he can go to work regularly and not trip over himself every time he sees the man. So Neil’s scared because John liking him back is insanely difficult for him to wrap his head around and he feels 16 again and unable to understand why certain things are a certain way and he’s promised himself he isn’t going to open himself up the possibility to be vulnerable again because by doing so he’s giving John permission to hurt him which scares him beyond anything else in this life. </p><p>John’s still here though, after seeing sides of Neil he tries to hide, the anger, the fright, the vulnerability too and he’s stayed for some god forsaken reason, decided somehow that Neil’s worth betting on and stuck around until now. And as usual it’s Neil who’s been the one to do the pushing away like he always does and all it took was one look at whatever Neil’s face was doing at that moment for John to bolt right out the door. It keeps replaying in his head and it hurts to see it, feeling much like an out of body experience, of how Neil’s lack of movement had completely shattered John, his face falling, body sagging in sadness as he’d left and Neil standing frozen, unable to even kiss back, or to really ask John what? What do you see in me that’s worth sticking around for? </p><p> </p><p>Neil thinks he’d like to know the answer to that question.</p><p> </p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>It’s 3Am when Neil gets back to the hotel having walked for hours without becoming any wiser from it, rather he’d felt himself unraveling the more time he spent stuck in his own head alone on the streets. He walks up to his own hotel door, hand on the door knob, and stands staring at it. The urge to do something comes out of nowhere almost knocking the breath out of him. It’s as strange as it is scary and exciting, but Neil suddenly feels like being brave, doesn’t think he can live with himself if he isn’t. He takes a step back and walks over to John’s room, stands staring at the door too long before he knocks gently. He realises it’s late and knocks again a little louder. When there’s no reply he knocks again and when nothing happens he just coaxes the door open by being unnecessarily good at picking them. It clicks open and Neil pushes down the handle at the same time as John does and they come face to face. </p><p>“Did you just try and unlock my door?” John asks, none of the humour normally in his voice there. Instead he looks tired, suit wrinkled, tie loose around his neck and hair standing up like he’s been pulling on it.</p><p>“I -I , yeah I guess I did.” He says sheepishly and John rolls his eyes and steps aside to let him in and Neil doesn’t understand why he would do that either after everything that’s happened tonight. But because he is John he does and Neil steps inside, pushing the door close with his back.</p><p>“Yeah of course you did. I forgot about those lock picking skills.” Neil doesn’t know what that means but doesn’t have time to ask.</p><p>“So…” He begins and John looks at the floor without meeting Neil’s eyes and it’s so unusual to see John like this that Neil loses his train of thought and what he had planned to say just disappears leaving him completely blank in the moment. </p><p>“Look Neil, what happened was a momentarily lapse in judgement on my part, it was unprofessional, and you’re right, I did fuck the mission up that we’ve worked very hard to get right for months, so I’m sorry about that.”</p><p>Neil doesn’t know what to say, just scratches at his head, pulling at his hair in discomfort while John looks at his feet.</p><p>“Riiiight.” </p><p>John’s eyes snap to him and he sighs before he walks over to the bar and grabs the whole bottle of scotch and brings it over. Without finesse he opens it takes a sip and gives it to Neil who puts it to his lips.</p><p>“No, you know what?” He puts the bottle down and takes a step further inside the room. John’s eyebrow raises in question. “I’ve gone too long being alive to not be brave, so now I’m going to be brave.”</p><p>“Okay…” John seems like he doesn’t understand and looks like he’s about to ask what Neil’s referring to. Neil doesn’t let him, he steps in close and throws caution to the fucking wind and kisses John like he should have done hours ago in the dirty kitchen. John makes a confused sound at the back of his throat but his hands come to rest on Neil’s arms and Neil thinks finally, before he’s gently getting pushed off. The thrill of the kiss is cut off abruptly and he blinks his eyes open in confusion, not expecting this to go in the direction of ‘no kissing’ when his brain had already gone towards ‘please take me to bed’ direction and it’s his time to look wounded. </p><p>“Neil, you - I mean, this isn’t right. You can’t kiss me out of some misplaced sense of loyalty or whatever this is. I shouldn’t have done it and you shouldn’t feel obligated to do this now when you didn’t hours ago. It’s not right.” John says holding onto Neil’s forearms to keep them from going right back around his neck to hold tightly. </p><p>Neil’s so shocked he barks out a laugh.</p><p>“Sorry.” He says between laughter at John’s hurtful look. “Sorry.” He gets himself a little bit more together before he pulls at his hands John has tightly wrapped around his own. John lets him go and Neil immediately steps in close, cups John’s face tightly and forces him to look him in the eyes.</p><p>“You’re such a fucking idiot for claiming to be so smart. How have you not noticed this already?”</p><p>“I never claimed to be smart, I think you’ve just assigned me that title.” But he doesn’t understand what Neil’s getting at, confusion still obvious in his eyes.</p><p>“Yeah that might be right, because you are being thick headed right now. I’m in love with you you fucking idiot. I’m not kissing you because I feel like I have to, I’m kissing you because I want to, because I’ve wanted you for months and I haven’t said anything because if you didn’t know this by now falling for men who are both your boss and out of your league is highly unprofessional. Can we just stop talking and can you take me to bed now?”</p><p>John’s eyes widen and he searches Neil’s face for any lie and Neil just smiles sheepishly because yeah, he’s in love with this stupid man and now he wants nothing more than for him to know. Suddenly John snorts and his face breaks out into a breathtakingly beautiful smile and Neil realises that this is what John looks like when he’s actually happy, and all previous smiles diminish compared to this one and Neil can’t help himself but thrust forward and grab John’s face and kiss him roughly. John stumbles by the force of it but he smiles against Neil’s lips before he rights them and starts to kiss back. Neil’s imagined the moment so many times before and had always, when it happened, thought that it would be rough and desperate, some biting, done in a way to release all of the frustrations he’s been carrying around for months and how intense it would make it. </p><p>He’s forced to re-address all those thoughts and slow his rushed movements down because John kisses him gently instead, like it’s important, like it’s supposed to mean something, like he’s trying to map out and remember Neil’s mouth and the sounds he makes when John shifts or runs his tongue alongside Neil’s. His kissing is just as goddamn attentive as his mind is when he’s planning missions and stakeouts and it knocks Neil’s breath out of him. It’s fucking intoxicating and he never wants it to end. John has lit a match inside of Neil and it quickly engulfs him as they kiss, the wildfire of it spreading to every part of Neil’s body, lighting up every part of him. His whole body feels aflame. </p><p>His kiss is delving deeper, and Neil feels like he’s never been kissed properly in his life when John kisses him like this, his hands moving from Neil’s wrists to tangle in his hair, to pull gently, which makes Neil moan against his mouth and John chuckle before he does it again a little harder making Neil chase his lips for more of it. John starts pushing Neil in what he thinks is the direction of the bedroom and it’s all Neil’s ever wanted.</p><p>……</p><p>When Neil wakes in the morning it’s with the sun shining in through the open curtains and with memories of John’s mouth on his skin like a hungry brand, marking him forever. He turns, sees John is on his back, one arm slung over Neil protectively while he’s breathing heavily. Neil doesn’t think he’s ever seen John sleeping before and he’s absolutely taken by the sight of him, face lax and wrinkles smoothed out, he’s tempted to kiss every inch of his face suddenly. He has a moment to wonder if he should sneak out, if that’s what’s expected of him as they didn’t set any boundaries last night or talked about what this really means. He wonders if that’s what John wants and has a moment to panic about everything, his breathing picking up and -</p><p>“Stop freaking out about it.” John says, voice still raspy with sleep, and the only indication he’s really awake other than that is how he tightens his arm around Neil’s waist, refusing to let him slip out of bed. Neil huffs but relaxes back immediately and John rolls around, removing the arm covering his eyes and blinks them open and close a few times to get used to the light. Neil leans over on his side and smiles like an idiot.</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>“Morning.” John says, smile bright too, looking less burdened than he has in months. </p><p>“How did you sleep?” He asks cheekily and John snorts, one of his arms coming to rest around Neil’s side, fingers tracing patterns over his skin making goosebumps erupt all over Neil’s body, he sucks in a sharp breath and John smirks. </p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“What? It’s been a long time since I had sex this good, and also you’re hot and in bed with me, can you blame me?” John preens under the attention and Neil doesn’t have it in him to be embarrassed by the confession, if he remembers last night correctly, then that should be way more embarrassing than this. John’s smirk disappears and he looks at Neil with something Neil can’t really interpret before John gently tugs him down and kisses all sense out of him. Neil shifts and John leans over him, pushing Neil onto the bed covering his body with his, mouth never leaving his lips and when Neil shifts his dick rubs against John’s thigh, making him hiss before biting down on a mark he left on Neil’s chest last night. Neil groans and pulls at John’s hair to get him to kiss him again. </p><p>Memories of last night are surely something that will keep Neil company for boring stakeouts in the future, when after the first time they had gone two more times, something Neil is honestly both impressed and surprised a man his age had managed to do, because he had to acknowledge that he is 31 and his stamina is not what it used to be. But as always, John’s always the exception and the thought of going again, just after a few hours of sleep is too exciting for anything to interrupt it. </p><p>Except maybe the agressively rumbling of John’s stomach, interpreting their very heated makeout session. It makes Neil giggle childishly and for John to groan in frustration which he is apparently unable to ignore as it does it again. John flops down beside him, breathing heavily by his side.</p><p>“Round 4 after breakfast?”</p><p>“It seems so.” John looks at his stomach treacherously and Neil laughs before he pulls John in for another kiss, having a bit of a hard time believing he can do that now, and feeling less willing to leave the bed, even for food. John groans into the kiss, pulls at Neil’s hair like a goddamn tease and Neil’s ready to just forget about food.</p><p>John pecks him, once, twice, before he smiles against Neil’s lips.</p><p>“Room service?” </p><p>Neil thinks it sounds like the best idea John’s ever had. </p><p>……</p><p>The tray has been left discarded on the floor, Neil with his head on John’s chest while he’s reading emails on his phone, gruting from time to time without being aware of doing it as Neil traces patterns on his chest. When John wants his hand to move to another place he gently nudges Neil and he snorts, calls him a diva but does as he’s been told, stroking his fingers gently over a new place on John’s toned and beautiful body. </p><p>Neil’s comfortable where he is, full from a luxurious breakfast of eggs and bacon and pancakes of course because John seems to have a sweet tooth in the morning too, and tired out after what was definitely a memorable 4th time. Neil’s honestly surprised he was still this flexible, but he’s finding that if he just puts a little bit of effort into it, he’s probably better in bed now than he was 10 years ago now anyway so. John seems to agree on that front too.</p><p>His eyes find John, can’t help but let his gaze linger openly now, who is frowning, his eyebrows knit together in annoyance and Neil can’t help but reach for him, his fingers gently stroking over the wrinkles, trying to smooth them out. John looks away from his phone and kisses Neil’s wrist before Neil trails his fingers further down John’s nose and closer to his lips. Gently John kisses each finger and Neil’s stomach flips at the act that is so soft Neil doesn’t fucking know what to do with it. </p><p>“Do you believe in soul mates?” He blurts out and John lifts an eyebrow, his mouth twitching. Neil has said it to diverte the situation, make it into something that is not John kissing his fingers and looking down at him like he’s important, but he also knows that he’s thought about the concept for a long long time, way before he met John and way before his mother died. He just never had the courage to ask his mother, didn’t want to bring up bad memories with his father, and he knows he would have gotten a reply from her he wasn’t happy with, something sarcastic and pessimistic, because for all her strength and happiness, Katherine Barton was often a realist and at times unnecessarily negative about things that to Neil had always seemed beautiful. </p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Neil shrugs and looks away, wants to forget about asking it, and goes back to stroking John’s chest, trying to distract him from answering. For a while Neil thinks it’s working and that John will forget about it and go back to his phone. </p><p>“I don’t know, if there is such a thing it’s not something that just is, it’s something that you make with another person by working towards it.”</p><p>It’s a surprisingly romantic and realistic answer coming from someone like John and Neil can’t help but look at him, his eyes meeting Neil’s, kind and understanding and non-judgemental before he smirks.</p><p>“Is my answer up to your satisfaction?” Neil chuckles, but nods and continues stroking John’s arm, up and down, soon enough goosebumps erupts and Neil enjoys the shudder going through John.</p><p>“It’s surprisingly romantic actually, I didn’t know you were one.” John huffs, sounding almost offended.</p><p>“I am actually quite a romantic person, under the right circumstances.”</p><p>“Oh I’m sure…”</p><p>“It’s true.” John gives him a contemplative look before he reaches down and softly kisses Neil, Neil sighing happily into it.</p><p>For everything to constantly be moving around them, pulling them in all sorts of directions, the world is pleasantly still just for a moment between them, something Neil has wished all his adult life for.</p><p>…..</p><p>Life continues, because it has to. It shouldn’t surprise Neil that things between stay mostly the same, they work, they plan, they execute, they eat, they sleep and then repeat. On the outside the relationship doesn’t change much, but to Neil it feels like they have broken down another barrier between them which has made them closer than ever. His life is now full of being shamelessly adored and touched by John, every caress and look full of tenderness and yearning and after many years of feeling damaged Neil begins to believe in love again.</p><p>He can’t for the life of him figure out how John hasn’t tired of him yet, because for all of Neil’s finesse and tactilness, John makes him feel stupid and one look from him can render him speechless, not many person has that affect on him. But despite it, John still laughs at Neil’s terrible jokes, still chides him during missions when he chooses to be reckless or do something he thinks is great but John thinks is stupid, still looks at Neil like he’s the smartest man he’s ever met when he adds or say something complicated to a conversation, kisses him feverently and holds him like he won’t ever get the chace again. Despite the changes and the non changes they still work flawlessly together. </p><p>But of course things are different too, for one, Neil has sex on the regular, which he hasn’t had in many years now, he gets on most days at least one hot meal which he does more for John’s benefit than his own because John is even more of a workaholic than what Neil is and is often more forgetful about taking care of himself than any person his age should be. He learns for real what it means to have someone to sleep in the same bed with, something he’s never had and for someone who has been a lone wolf for most of his life he’s a little surprised he takes to John’s presence in beds, couches, cars, stakeouts, and once in a dirty tent in the desert, as quickly as he does, because even though Neil sleeps more regularly then he has for a long time, they don’t have the luxury of functioning like a normal couple does. </p><p>No cinema dates or anniversaries to remember or argue whose turn it is to take out the trash. These are mundane things, things Neil has never spent time considering ever wanting to have in his life, until now. Being with John has somehow made Neil long for leaving this all behind, buy a house in a remote place, take John with him and never see the end of a gun ever again. But after each mission there are always ten more that need to be looked over and executed just as flawlessly as the previous one and there is no way none of them can ever take a break. Neil thinks John is tired too, he smiles more, but he’s sometimes more distant than he’s ever been before, sometimes he gets a sad faraway look in his eyes that Neil can barely break through to him when it happens and Neil wishes he could carry some of his pain for him, but John is stubborn as always and refuses to give, even when Neil tries pushing really hard. </p><p>They don’t spend a lot of time apart in the upcoming months, which makes Neil think they are becoming too codependent in a kind of unhealthy way because there are days where John are away for days, not saying where he is, just that he has to sort some things out alone, missions that require just him, so when he goes he leaves Neil in charge, but Neil twists and turns in whichever bed he’s chosen to spend the night in, not sleeping much when John’s away from him where he can’t have his back and protect him, even though John can definitely hold his own. </p><p>He sees John’s actual apartment on one memorable occasion when they are both so exhausted after spending a week inverted in Shanghai that when Neil asks where they are going to sleep John seems to be so exhausted he takes him to his place in south London without really thinking. It’s in Hackney, an attic apartment tucked away in an old brick building, which on closer inspection from Neil looks to have been unused for weeks, the layers of dust on each surface very telling of how much time’s been spent here. Everything is nice, minimalistic and modern, with natural light coming in through the massive windows overlooking the skyscrapers further up north of town. Neil doesn’t have the time to think about everything too closely though, he just has the energy to change sheets on the bed which has an adjoining bathroom with both a bathtub and a shower which looks to have heavenly water pressure that Neil wants to take advantage of in the morning, before they both get into bed. </p><p>John falls asleep on Neil’s chest the minute he’s in bed while Neil lays awake for a little while longer, trying to calm down after a week of barely any sleep, a bullet wound for a team mate and a broken finger for John, but it takes some time like it always does for him to be able to fully relax. Being with John like this has made him realise that John has an uncanny ability to fall asleep unnaturally quickly, wherever he is he is often out like a light as soon as his head hits the pillow. It’s strange that someone like John, assertive, alert and always a little bit on edge can just turn his brain off and go to sleep. Neil isn’t at all like that but he finds comfort in John’s steady heartbeat, still alive and breathing and eventually falls asleep too.</p><p>…..</p><p>This morning Neil’s had a boxing session with Ives of all people. Their thing is usually running, but Ives had been angry at something he wouldn’t say what and that he needed to take it out on someone who could hold their own, and Neil didn’t mind, the one time he called Ives in the middle of the night for a run an obvious reminder that he owes him so he spends an hour letting Ives take out his frustrations before he showers and changes into one of the many suits he keeps at the office for emergencies and is on his way to a meeting when John steps out of his office intercepting Neil and asks him to join him in his office instead. Something is obviously wrong, John’s back is rigid and his face so closed off Neil’s never seen it like this. It worries him immediately and he wants to reach out, but he feels it would be the wrong thing to do with John’s body strung so tightly. </p><p>“Please sit.” Neil does. “There’s something we need to talk about, something I haven’t wanted to talk about but I can’t afford to wait any longer with now.” John seems brittle, almost irritable, like he will snap in two any second. </p><p>“Okay…”</p><p>“All I ask is that you let me finish speaking and when I am done you can be as angry as you want with me, okay?” Neil’s eyebrow shoots upwards and surprise must show on his face because John nods defeatedly and sighs, this is serious then.</p><p>“When I created Tenet all these years ago, and what I have been working towards all this time is to stop the biggest threat humanity has ever faced, ever. In the future there is a generation of people which believes that in order to stop the destruction of their world, they have to destroy ours. They are planning to do that in the past, many years into the past.”</p><p>Neil’s heard and seen some bathsit crazy stuff while working with John, but this, this seems to take the price of everything. </p><p>“There is a scientist that creates an algorithm, that when deployed will trigger a nuclear explosion on a devastating scale, but she realises what it will be used for and in order to save everyone she breaks it off into small pieces which she sends back in time, to our time precisely, so that they will be hidden there and can’t be used. When I first stumble upon this I am much younger than now, fresh off a mission gone tits up in Kiev and just declared dead and diseased.” Something churns uncomfortably in Neil’s stomach by those words but John presses on, ignoring Neil’s growing anxiety.</p><p>“It’s also the first time I meet you.” Neil’s heart stops beating for a moment as John bites at his lip, uncertainty flashing across his face. </p><p>“I know that you have been wondering why I know so much about everything and about you. Recruiting you wasn’t some random decision I made, I recruited you because an older version of you told me that I would. You and me, we keep experiencing our relationship from different points of views over and over again, it’s been set up this way and it has to continue that same way going forward. But because we do, that’s also why I must ask something of you, because an older version of you told me that too. And I’ve spent enough time doing this now to know there isn’t another way… Fuck…” His voice waver and Neil thinks that John might break down, but he takes a deep breath and composes himself once more. “If this doesn’t work, then everything we’ve worked for, everything I have done will have been for nothing.”</p><p>“What?” Neil asks, because he’s curious, can’t help but always be when it comes to John and his plans, always so brilliant even when risky. But he’s scared too because he has seen many different sides of John, but he’s never seen this, on the verge of breakdown because of what he’s done, his professionalism all gone, stripped back to reveal a man looking both much younger and older at the same down, worn down to the scraps of all the choices he’s made. Neil doesn’t know how to feel about it. </p><p>“You need to travel back in time, you will be briefed down to the smallest detail so you know exactly what to do when it’s time. Once back you will meet me, a younger much less self assured and fresh me that doesn’t know what’s going on. As I piece it all together and save the world you need to guide me through it, help me so that I’m not led too much astray. I will find myself in Mumbai, there I will need a contact, that will be you and thereon out you and me will work together to achieve the safety of everyone which will ultimately be what inspires me to create Tenet in the first place.”</p><p>Neil is gripping the table in front of him, the one thing separating them at the moment, it feels miles longer though, and Neil is fighting down the urge to recoil by what he’s being told. He feels like a deer dressed up for slaughter, like the very ground underneath his feet is about to split open and make Neil fall until he hits the ground, broken and beyond repair. </p><p>“There will be a moment, a very small window in which you can reveal to me who you are, but not before that, never. Because if you do then the things that need to happen won’t, and everything will have been for nothing. We will all die.”</p><p>Neil’s emotions all over the place, the more he’s being told the more he grapples with the urge to throw something, preferably at John in hopes that it will settle everything that’s been shaken to the very core inside of him, because this is fucking insane. And it’s not just insane, it’s breaking Neil too because what John is asking him to do is to leave everything behind, how the fuck is he supposed to leave this John, his John behind to a future he isn’t even sure exists. </p><p>“There is more…” John is flexing and unflexing his fingers in front of him, he looks small and wounded, and if the information he’s been told so far has made him feel like running out of this room and never returning, he doesn’t know what this part will begin to make him feel.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Please believe me when I say that when I found out the connection between Neil and Max it was all too late.” Neil’s whole body goes cold, his whole back tensing and for a moment all he hears is his heartbeat inside of his ears. No one is supposed to know about Max, he’s been buried, hidden so well that no one should be able to find out about him. John has a look of regret on his face, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenches it.</p><p>“I knew your mother for a brief period of time, Kat, Katherine Barton, a remarkable woman. I had the utmost respect for her. Anyway I’m not sure how much you are actually aware of what your father was up to when he was alive?”</p><p>“I hated that man.” Neil says, fists clenched.</p><p>“So did your mom. She was the one that killed him on that yacht in Thailand, that was never the plan, we were specific that it shouldn’t have had to happen, but she slipped up and shot him before me and Ives managed to stop the bomb from going off.”</p><p>“Ives? Like Ives Ives.”</p><p>“Yes, that same Ives.” Realisation dawns on Neil, because that means Ives must have been briefed about this which would explain the sudden anger he had taken out less than an hour ago by repeatedly punching a bag into Neil. </p><p>“One of the few mistakes that I regret is using her and pulling her into the whole mess, I just didn’t fucking realise that the son that she called Max who she cared about above all else in this world and wanted to protect more than she cared about breathing herself, that that person would grow up to be you.” John gestures to him, his voice full of desperation, and he looks terrified for a moment. </p><p>“And when I realised you changed your name after her death it was way too late to even try and stop everything, to pull out and not fucking let you close in, but that had already happened and you were already a Tenet agent by then and I couldn’t pull you out because that would mess everything up and we would have all died.”</p><p>“Oh my God, you gave the phone to my mother.” Neil realises, deeply horrified and fascinated by it at the same time.</p><p>“I did yes, after Vietnam and Stalsk-12 I was sure something would happen to her, it did but I stopped it in time. She used the phone only once, but she would text from time to time, tell me updates about her life and I never answered, but I always kept an eye on her just in case.”</p><p>“You were at her funeral, I remember you.” Neil realises another thing, finally putting an actual face to the person hidden in the shadows by a fancy car. It had all happened so quickly and he had been so full of grief to pay it too much attention back then.</p><p>“I was yes. I was so sad when she died, she was incredible.”</p><p>“She was yes.” Neil says coldy and John gulps, takes a moment but then continues talking. </p><p>“Your father, Andrej Sator, the future uses him as their middle man, setting everything up through him and so I had to use your mother to get in contact with him so that I could find out what he was up to. He was a bad person, your father and I’m sorry for that.”</p><p>“You knew my father?” John closes his eyes, breathes through his nose before he opens them again, dark and stormy, grief stricken. </p><p>“I did, not well and not for long, but I spent some time with him.”</p><p>Neil leans forward, his head resting on his knees, trying to sort through the mess in his brain.</p><p>“This, this is fucked up John.”</p><p>“I know, god I fucking know…. I’ve had to sit with it for a while, but I couldn’t go on any longer with the lie and we can’t afford to wait too much longer before putting it all in motion.”</p><p>“What you’re asking me to do, how can you?” Neil accuses and stares at John, his lip wobbling as he fights down his tears. John puts his head in his hands, voice wavering. </p><p>“Because…. because the whole world has to matter more than one person.” Neil feels like he’s been punched in the gut, the air stamped out of him until he can’t breathe.</p><p>“Fuck you.”</p><p>“I’ve told you before that we can’t afford to care more about one single person than we can do about the bigger picture... I fucking love you, what the fuck do you think it does to me knowing that I have to send you to your….” His voice cracks and John wipes a tear off his face furiously,  mouth in a thin line.</p><p>“To my what?” John hesitates for a long time. </p><p>“To your death.” John refuses to look at him when he finally, horrified, whispers the words, biting at his lip to stop from crying.</p><p>“You love me?”</p><p>John’s eyes snap to his and he rolls his eyes before he snottily snorts.</p><p>“Fuck off, that’s what you choose to focus on?”</p><p>“Was there anything else you said that was of importance?”</p><p>“This is not the time for your terrible humour.”</p><p>“Well you’ve just unloaded a shit ton of information on me, one, that you know both my parents, two, that there is a threat out there set on fucking destroying the whole world, three, that I’m going to die and four, that you love me. What part of this whole mess would you like me to think about?”</p><p>“Fuck… Neil, I am sorry, so fucking sorry okay?” Neil shrugs.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.” John looks like he’s grown a second head.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter?! Of course it fucking matters, it matters above everything.”</p><p>“Maybe so, but I’m still going to do it. I’m going to take that file on your desk and I am going to read it and then I’m going to do what you ask of me because if you haven’t figured out another way yet, then there is none.”</p><p>“Fuck… the world does not deserve you.” John looks like a broken man but his eyes are strong, looking at Neil tenderly and for a moment the world falls away again, everything quieting around them, John’s expression at the moment saying more than words ever could. Neil smiles.</p><p>“I love you too.” John snorts, but it almost looks like he’s blushing too and Neil puts his hand forward, palm up and resting on the leather coaster between them, meeting in the middle. John’s eyes flit up to his and he smiles too before he puts his hand in Neil’s, Neil holding on for dear life as he comes to terms with what’s going to happen. </p><p>“It’s going to be okay.” John looks like he doesn’t believe Neil, but somehow Neil knows it will be because John is sitting here and if he pulls everything off John will live and that is worth everything. John is worth his sacrifice. </p><p>They sit for a while just looking at each other, raw, earth shattering and profoundly, hands attached, and take the other person in fully, Neil tries to remember John’s face so that he will never forget it, never. </p><p>They have insanely tender and beatiful sex on John’s couch that evening, and Neil thinks that after this he will never ever forget this man.</p><p>…..</p><p>Neil has always had the ability to compartmentalise, it’s how he has survived before. And while he can definitely be emotional he’s always liked problems, always been drawn to the things he doesn’t understand so he can analyse every possibility, categorise every problem and theorise every probability. It’s why he was such an excellent scientist, and why he’s a good agent too. It’s served him well in the past and it serves him the best the moment John drops the bomb about his future and what he has to do. He should be worried, erratic, angry even, but the only realistic angle Neil can tackle this obstacle from, is that it’s the only way.</p><p>One day when Neil gets home to his flat in London he has a few voice messages waiting on his answering machine. Not a lot of people use landlines these days but he finds it useful for when he spends so much time away from this place, that people can leave him messages that he can listen to later. He presses the button to listen and a posh male voice fills up his apartment. </p><p>Hi, Mr. Barton. I’ve been trying to reach you for some time. I’m calling quite urgently and I would really appreciate it if you would give me a call back on this number as soon as you have the chance. Thank you, kind regards Mr. Pierce.</p><p>Neil frowns, a little unsettled by being called by his birth name, there’s only a few people alive that know what his name is, and puts everything he’s holding down and calls back immediately. It’s barely rung before it’s picked up on the other end.</p><p>“Pierce.”</p><p>“Hi, Mr. Pierce, it’s -” Neil hesitates for a moment, he hasn’t used the name in so long it feels unfamiliar on his tongue. “It’s Max Barton, I have a message from you…”</p><p>Mr. Pierce perks up immediately, his tone both professional as well as relieved.</p><p>“Ah, Mr. Barton I am so excited to hear from you. My name is Kevin, Kevin Pierce. I don’t think you have heard of me or ever met me. But the reason that I’m calling is because I’ve had some dealings with your father in the past. He set up an account for you here with us at J.P Morgan, were you aware of that?”</p><p>“Eh, no, I wasn’t.”</p><p>“Yes that’s what I thought. It was controlled by your mother until the day you turned of legal age and then it would fall into your hands.”</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>“The reason I’m calling though is because in the recent weeks I have gotten some strange calls with a request for a withdrawal of a sum from the account. It’s a little worrying as your dad was very set on you being the only one able to make a withdrawal from us and we take our clients' security very seriously here. And therefore we must notify our customers when a request is made from their accounts. I hope you understand.” Neil is so confused because while he inherited quite a lot of money from his mother he donated most of it to her charity work, he has never heard anything about any savings from his father, and it seems his mother was aware that it existed, and he can’t help but wonder why he was never told of it before. </p><p>“Can I ask what the total amount in the account is?”</p><p>Neil almost drops the phone when he hears the answer.</p><p>What the fuck?????? </p><p>Neil could retire forever with that amount of money. Hell by his own calculations he’s a millionaire suddenly. </p><p>“Right….”</p><p>“I know it must come as a surprise to you since your dad never mentioned it. It would allow you to settle quite nicely if you choose to.”</p><p>“It would, can I ask about the calls you’ve been receiving.”</p><p>“You can Sir, she’s left you a message which tells you to get in contact with her, she mentioned to tell you the world ‘schchenok’, that you would understand the meaning of the word.” Neil goes cold, he hasn’t heard that word in a long long time.</p><p>“Thank you very much for notifying me.” Kevin Pierce doesn’t even have time to say his goodbyes before Neil hangs up on him, slamming the phone into the receiver and groans.</p><p>Neil has a safe in his wardrobe, one he rarely opens because it’s full of stuff reminding him of things and actions of his past he’d want nothing else than to forget. But even he knew that he couldn’t get rid of certain things, that there would come a day when some of it would come in handy to him. He’s been clutching the file called operation ‘the road not taken yet’ which is a ridiculous name, but it contains all the information he needs for when it’s time for him to invert back, further back then he’s ever gone before to finish everything that was started. He puts it down by his coat and walks into his closet to open up Pandora's box, leading him back to a past he’d like to erase completely.</p><p>There is a notebook in the safe, one containing phone numbers, some which Neil remembers and some he’s barely spent any time looking at. He takes out an old phone, puts a sim card in and dials the number he knows will be the right one. It rings for a long time before someone finally answers.</p><p>“Da.” A curt voice says.</p><p>“Grandmother.” Neil says back in perfect russian. There is a long pause before she speaks again.</p><p>“You got the message.”</p><p>“I did, what do you want?” He says, tone short. She snorts on the other end then starts to cough.</p><p>“I want to meet my grandson.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Do not argue with me, you will come to Russia and we will talk.” Neil pinches the bridge of his nose, he doesn’t have the time for this.”</p><p>“I am busy.”</p><p>“Get unbusy and don’t use that tone with me. We need to meet.”</p><p>“Fine, fine, I’ll get there as soon as I can.” Neil feels like a child being scolded, embarrassment burning in his stomach as he petulantly agrees, knowing that if he doesn’t it won’t be worth the trouble she will kick up. </p><p>“Good, see you soon.”</p><p>Fuck Neil thinks as she hangs up because on this of all days to get a call from a grandmother he hasn’t seen in years, who didn’t seem to either care much about Neil or her own son is so inncoveniant. But he sees no other choice than to go because this woman will make trouble if she isn’t appeased and Neil doesn’t want trouble, he wants to be left alone.</p><p>He books himself to Moscow the next morning, makes sure to book first class because he refuses to go to the godforsaken country and not be treated to a comfortable chair and privacy and then he emails Vivian, who isn’t John’s assistant, and if she ever knew that Neil jokingly calls her that he would get a kick to the balls which he doesn’t want. But she’s John’s second in command, well maybe third because he is definitely John’s second, but she’s much closer to be the one to take over if something were ever to happen to John or to him, and he’s soon going away to do a mission in the past he doesn’t expect to come back from, so she’s up for a promotion anyway. He tells her he’s going to be out of the country, is vague about the details, but assures her he needs to do this and that he will be back soon. Then he packs a bag and spends the rest of the evening reading about his mission in the past.</p><p>…..</p><p>When he lands in Moscow the next day, he rents a car, the weather dreary and depressing to really match his mood as he listens to the monotonic russian woman guiding him to the location he has plugged in. The clouds lay low, rain heavy in the air making everything feel stuffy and Neil has to on more than one occasion put the air conditioning on in order to be able to breathe properly in the stifling car. When he finally gets there he is in a bad mood, it’s already started getting darker, the sun peeking out behind the trees even though it’s a few hours still till sundown.</p><p>The village is small, most buildings built in Soviet style, the gray paint having faded off most block buildings, store windows with shut painted in red letters across, on some the glass have been smashed, the shards glinting dangerously on the tarmac as he drives. There seems to be one operating store, and by most corners people are either smoking or drinking. The whole village is depressing the hell out of Neil, and he fights down the urge to turn around and drive in the other direction. </p><p>Once he passes the town he gets to a mud path leading into the woods. The whole thing is setting Neil on edge because if this is some kind of ambush or something, he’s pretty fucked. No one knows where he is.</p><p>But of course it isn’t, when he steps out of the car there’s only a few houses left, all built in wood that looks to be rotting off the walls, rickety and tilted, like the world around is reclaiming its ground back. Most of them look like they are barely hanging on by a thread and if he were to blow in their direction, they would fall. Neil sees some sheep on a hill, hears the neighing of a horse in the distance, and the only thing this tiny place tucked away at the end of the world got going for it seems to be the fresh air. To make things worse he steps into a puddle of mudd, because he refused to go all the way to Russia without wearing a suit and nice shoes to match, it’s going to make his taylor roll his eyes so hard when Neil comes back with shoes costing double most people’s monthly salary, with mud the size of a handprint on them</p><p>A man in a worker’s uniform, a straw in his mouth with a sloppy face and hollow eyes laughs to himself and mutters about posh pricks.</p><p>“It pays to be a posh prick where I come from.” Neil tells him in rusian and the man just grunts, doesn’t dignify Neil with a reply back in russian and turns his back muttering to himself.</p><p>He walks up to the house, this one looking at least a little nicer than the rest of them and then knocks with trepidation on the door. After a while an old woman comes to the door, a front tooth missing and teeth yellow from years of smoking, her hair up in a tight bun on her head with graying bits hanging loose from it, her eyes are alert though, not those to miss anything as she looks Neil up and down and takes him in as he does the same.</p><p>“You came.” She says in english, accent thick and voice raspy like she hasn’t spoken in a while.</p><p>“You gave me no choice.” He tells her but for her benefit, keeps it in russian. </p><p>“You still speak russian I hear.” She switches back and Neil crosses his arms.</p><p>“I was forced to learn, it stuck.”</p><p>“Yes, you sound a little rusty.”</p><p>“Are you going to invite me in?”</p><p>“Your dad didn’t teach you manners, schchenok.” The nickname rolls off her lips with ease and Neil frowns, doesn’t like the way she says it so naturally, like she has any claim over him after years of neglect.</p><p>“My dad was a piece of shit, now let me into this house so I can get the fuck out of here as soon as poassible.” She huffs but steps aside, the floorboards underneath his feet creaking so much Neil’s almost scared he’s going to break them when he follows her. She’s small compared to Neil, her back built solidly but starting to bend from years of hard work. She leads him into a kitchen and puts the kettle on, leaving Neil standing a bit awkwardly back before he just decides to sit down by the table, but not before dusting one of the chairs off with the back of his hand. </p><p>“Tea?”</p><p>“Sure.” She makes it without asking anything else or saying anything for that matter, Neil pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling tiredness seep into his veins but forces it away. She puts it down in front of him, takes two small glasses out and puts a bottle of vodka down in front of them. Neil raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“It’s custom in Russia.” She pours herself one and he shakes his head and moves the glass further away. She shrugs and pours some more into her glass.</p><p>“Your dad never taught you any traditions.”</p><p>“Are we here to talk about my dad? I’d rather not.” She focuses her grey eyes on him and they narrow.</p><p>“Why do you hate him so?”</p><p>“Hate him? I didn’t know him, he was barely home and when he was he wasn’t exactly father of the year. He was an abusive asshole and he deserved to die.”</p><p>“Careful boy, it’s my son you are talking about.”</p><p>“Well he turned out awful, I’m guessing you weren’t mother of the year either.” If Neil wasn’t a trained agent he would have never seen the slap coming, but because he is, he reacts, pushes his chair back and reaches forward to twist her wrist into an awkward angle. She grunts, but smiles crookedly when her hand hits the table, not too gently.</p><p>“Good, you didn’t turn out soft after all.” He lets her go and makes sure to move the chair further away from her, her eyes glinting as she watches, almost predatorily. Neil might have underestimated her slightly, and he immediately becomes more cautious of her, refusing to let his guard down. He wonders if the tea is poisoned.</p><p>“I have not poisoned the tea if that’s what you’re thinking, I don’t do that to family.”</p><p>“We are not family.” Neil takes a sip though, almost burning his tongue and gagging because of how strong it is, tasting strangely to him of something he can’t quite name. </p><p>“We are.”</p><p>“If you insist, but if you remember you never made an effort to get to know me, you were a face I could never put a name to, so I don’t think you have any claim to call us family.”</p><p>“Essie, it’s Essie Sator.”</p><p>“I know, I looked it up.” He confesses. She gives him a look, it reminds him of his father and it unsettles something in Neil, making it hard for him to refuse her. “I’m MI6.”</p><p>She spits on the floor by his shoes and glares.</p><p>“Fucking spy.”</p><p>“I’m a pattern recognitioner, I work in a lab.” Somehow that makes her look even more disappointed.</p><p>“You are all the same.”</p><p>“It pays well.” He says sarcastically, looking around the place in dismay. It’s not too bad as places go, but Neil doesn’t like it, and it’s cold in here. </p><p>“Yes not all of us can be born with a silver spoon in our mouth, some of us work hard.”</p><p>“Well my dad was practically a billionaire, he didn’t give you any money?”</p><p>“I never wanted his money, it was blood money.” Neil guesses he can respect that a little bit.</p><p>“It was yes.”</p><p>“But I did want to see my grandchild, I wasn’t allowed.” Neil schools his features into disinterest, he doesn’t want her to see his surprise, because whether it’s true or not it’s still news to him and he feels after their little scuffle earlier, that he can’t take her word for what it is. Despite her age she is shifty. </p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because your father got rich and forgot where he came from. He married an aristocrat for Christ's sake, that was beneath him.” Anger flares in Neil because no one gets to talk badly of his mother.</p><p>“Be careful Essie, if you insult my mother again I will not take to it kindly.” She mocks his warning off and sits back.</p><p>“She was a prissy little bitch too, didn’t want anything to do with the poor farmer russian family and Andrej didn’t either. They suited each other well in that regard.” Neil squeezes the cup tightly and bites his lip to stop himself from doing something he might regret later. </p><p>“You look like him though, your mother’s eyes, but you look like my Andrej.” He grapples with the urge to throw up, nausea hitting him from out of nowhere, yet again he wonders if the tea is poisoned or if the comparison to his father that’s been made is what’s making him so uncomfortable. Essie gets up and walks over to a rickety bureau and takes out a photo album and then comes scuffing back towards the table. She puts it in front of him and sits down again. Neil hesites, can’t help but eye the bottle of Vodka still on the table, she smirks and pushes it towards him. Before he opens the album he takes a big sip, Essie looking proud for a moment before she joins him and downs her glass and pours another one. The vodka burns its way down his throat and he shakes his head before he flips the first page open. </p><p>On the page he can see his dad and younger brothers, with shovels and knee deep in snow digging their way out to the road, all of them scrawny looking and small. But there’s a hunger to his dad’s eyes, a glimt of something just beneath the surface that Neil recognises as the greed and drive for constantly wanting more that was always present during his childhood. He flips the page, comes across countless photos he’s never seen before, giving life to a father he barely knew. On the last page there is one of Neil himself, in Kat’s lap, barely a year old, blue eyes like his mother but to Essie’s credit, looking a lot like his father used to look like, he has to give her that...</p><p>“I got it sent to me when you were born, it was the only photo I ever got.” Neil sees it’s been touched countless times, so wrinkly it looks like it might fall apart.</p><p>“Why am I here grandma.” She smiles, eyes wrinkling when he says it and Neil isn’t cruel, but he doesn’t owe Essie anything and this whole meeting is doing nothing other than making him feel unhappy and resigned about the whole world. Her smile turns slightly downwards but she speaks again.</p><p>“I’m dying, lungcancer.” </p><p>Ah.</p><p>“I wanted to see my grandson one last time before it’s time for me to pass.”</p><p>“Do you have anyone that helps you? That takes care of you?” He can’t help but ask.</p><p>“No, it’s just me like it’s always been. Your grandad was a cowardly piece of shit, and all my children have died.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t be child, I’m an old woman. I’ve lived a long and tough life, it’s time for me to go now.”</p><p>“Do you need any money?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yes, I am sure. I have gotten by so far, I have a few months tops left, I will be fine.” </p><p>Neil sighs and drinks the rest of the vodka, she smirks and downs her too. He picks up the bottle and amicably pours them both some more. </p><p>“Will you tell me about my father then?” She tilts her head before she shrugs.</p><p>“I will, how is your mother by the way?”</p><p>“She’s dead.”</p><p>“Ah, I’m sorry to hear. She never liked me, I didn’t like her either but she seems to have raised you well, I will give her that.” Neil chuckles. </p><p>“She was a good person.”</p><p>“Privilege and entitled she was.”</p><p>Neil knows she has a point. He’s met the rest of the Bartons and he cut all ties with that part of the family as soon as he could. He hasn’t heard from any of them since after she passed and he would like that to be kept that way.</p><p>“She might have been yes, she came from wealth, but she suffered when she was together with your son. He wasn’t nice to her, and he sure wasn’t nice to the world.”</p><p>“Yes I don’t doubt that, he always had a temper. But they were happy when they met, for a while they were, I promise you.” Neil studies her and he can’t decide whether she’s lying or not.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter, they are both dead.”</p><p>“That’s true, do you have anyone?” He doesn’t know what to say to that.</p><p>“I’m gay.” He settles for because he thinks it will piss her off and that would make him feel a little happy despite everything being shit. She bursts out laughing though, hitting her stomach repeatedly.</p><p>“That is a big fuck you to my son, hilarious. It couldn’t be better.” Neil rolls his eyes, genuinely surprised she hasn’t kicked him out of the house for that confession. Maybe old grandmothers living on the countryside in Russia aren't as close minded as he’d thought.</p><p>“It would be yeah.”</p><p>“Good for you, being lonely is not good. Don’t live your life like I have schchenok, you’ll only have your mistakes to tend to, it’s awful company.”</p><p>“Okay, now tell me about my father.”</p><p>“As you wish.”</p><p>Neil leaves late in the evening, takes Essie’s hand and presses it close to his before, it makes her smile and she looks kind for once and it settles something in Neil too, even though it’s a goodbye. When he goes to the bathroom he leaves some money for her, just in case, and hides it underneath the towels she keeps underneath the sink and knows that when she finds it she will be furious but he will be long gone by then anyway so it doesn’t matter.</p><p>He leaves in the dark and drives all the way to Moscow, spends the night at an airport hotel, staring at the ceiling while in bed, missing John, drinks tea as company and takes up the file he’s kept hidden since he set foot here and reads it for the tenth time that night, even though he’s memorized all the pages by now. As he lies there he can’t help but feel like he’s saying his goodbyes, one by one, before he leaves and never returns. </p><p>He can’t wait to be back in London though, to see John again because if this whole trip has done anything for him, it’s to make him exhausted. </p><p>…..</p><p>When Neil lands in London the next afternoon he has ten missed calls from unknown numbers and almost as many texts from Ives telling him to call him. When Vivian doesn’t pick up, Neil refuses to be worried. That isn’t unusual. He tries Ives next.</p><p>“What the fuck Ives?” He says as soon as Ives pick up. There’s a pause.</p><p>“Neil…” He begins. “It’s the boss, you need to get here as soon as you can, I don’t think he has much time left.” Neil freezes up, his heart contracts in fear and he finds it’s very hard to breathe suddenly. It’s by sheer strength he doesn’t drop the phone he’s holding and as he runs as fast as he can to get a taxi he clutches it to himself like a lifeline. </p><p>“What the fuck happened?!”</p><p>“This line isn’t secure -”</p><p>“I don’t give a fuck, tell me now or I swear Ives…”</p><p>“Inverted bullet.”</p><p>Neil’s heart sinks and he hangs up.</p><p>When he gets to the hospital facility, he’s fighting back a panic attack, having tasted blood in his mouth from biting into it so hard in the taxi. He runs up the stairs to the room John’s in, pushing past blurry faces. When he opens the door, he’s laying on a bed, breathing uneven and shallow, his whole chest shaking with effort.</p><p>“Fuck, John.” His eyes snap open and through the haziness of pain John seems to be clear and lucid when Neil speaks. He smiles as Neil crouches by his side.</p><p>“Neil.”</p><p>“I came as fast as I could. I’m sorry, fuck.”</p><p>“Don’t be.” </p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>“Ambush.” He’s speaking slowly, few words in each sentence and he sees John fight down another wave of pain, his eyes widening for a moment and his breathing becoming even more irregular. </p><p>“Okay, what can I do, what have the doctors said?”</p><p>“Nothing, there is nothing to be done.”</p><p>“How, why?!”</p><p>“Because I said no, it’s my time.”</p><p>“No, no, don’t speak like that, it’s not true.” Neil’s fighting down another wave of tears, he’s done this before, watched someone he loves with all his heart slip away from him, he doesn’t want to do it again.</p><p>“What the fuck where you doing in the field alone?”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“It matters because you’re about to die on me and I don’t know why.”</p><p>“How was Russia?”</p><p>“Fuck you don’t change the subject.”</p><p>“You can’t change what’s happened here, it doesn’t work that way. It’s my time now and when I am gone you have to promise me that you will complete your mission in the past. You have to.” Neil shakes his head but John takes his hand and presses it into Neil’s chest, his eyes hardening as he looks at Neil.</p><p>“No, you have to promise me, I am not worth it.”</p><p>“Yes you are.” Neil lets his tears fall now, not caring that they end up on John.</p><p>“No, I’m not, deep down you know this. You have to promise me Neil, promise me on Kat.” It’s a fucking low blow and John knows this of course, and yet he looks at Neil, raw and pleading and Neil’s resolve breaks down and he nods, presses their intertwined fingers to his lips and kisses them softly.</p><p>“Fuck you, I promise on Kat that I will complete the mission.” John smiles wryly and nods determinedly.</p><p>“Good, good, that’s good.”</p><p>“Are you in pain? Can I do anything?” John shakes his head.</p><p>“No, you can stay, that’s all.”</p><p>“Okay, okay, I’ll stay.” Neil gets up and slowly maneuvers himself onto John’s small bed, very careful not to jostle him, while getting as close to him as he can at the moment, resting his head on his shoulder. John chuckles but squeezes him close, a weak attempt to what being held by John is normally like. But Neil will take it over never feeling it again.</p><p>“I was once asked how I would like to die, I said old and gray. I think I almost got it right.”</p><p>“You’re not that old.” Neil jokes and John huffs underneath him. </p><p>“Maybe not but I feel like I’ve lived a hundred years, I’m tired Neil, so fucking tired and I’m not afraid of dying. All I’m scared off is that all I have done, every choice, every battle, every kill, will have been for nothing, that all the pieces I have set in motion won’t have been enough and the world will end anyway and we will all die.”</p><p>“It won’t have been for nothing, it will all work out.” Neil reassures him, stroking his hair and biting his lip to prevent from screaming and crying in pain at the powerlessness he feels over this shit. </p><p>“I hope so.”</p><p>“I’m going to miss you.” Neil whispers, feeling his heart break in two, is pretty sure he can hear it shatter in his chest.</p><p>“You’ll see me soon enough.”</p><p>“Yes but it won’t be you.”</p><p>“No, it won’t be. But I’m in there somewhere, you just need to have some faith.”</p><p>“Faith in what?”</p><p>“In me.” He says cryptically and Neil’s not sure if it’s his deliriousness talking or if he means something by it Neil doesn’t yet understand.</p><p>“I always have faith in you. You’re the exception to every rule.”</p><p>“So are you.”</p><p>“What a pair we make huh?”</p><p>“Soulmates.” John whispers and Neil’s heart is in his throat as he continues stroking John’s hair in hopes it will offer him so comfort.</p><p>“Who keep meeting each other over and over again in the timeline and experience our relationship at different points of views.”</p><p>“That’s definitely soulmate material.”</p><p>“You old romantic.”</p><p>“I told you I was.”</p><p>“You did yeah, and you were right.”</p><p>“I often am.” Neil snorts and softly kisses John’s clammy forehead. </p><p>“You can’t even be serious when you’re dying.”</p><p>“You’re rubbing off on me it seems.”</p><p>“In more ways than one.” It’s a terrible joke and yet it makes John laugh, his whole chest shaking in an effort not to let himself go to the pain, while he seems unable to stop too. Neil knows now that he must be slightly slipping away. </p><p>After that Neil has no words left and it seems John doesn’t either. Ever since they met they’ve been strangely in tune with one another, able to function without normal means of communication, at times it has felt like John’s an extension of his own body and mind, able to read all of the emotions he’s felt and foresee every move he’s going to make. It doesn’t stop now at the brink of death, the connection just as strong. So neither men say anything else because Neil doesn’t know if any words would reach in this moment anyway, some tragedies are too terrible to name, and while Neil wants to push away his suffering it’s not the right time for it now. He wants to soak in his last moment with John in peace.</p><p>It takes a few more hours until John dies, his breathing coming way more infrequent each time his chest rises and falls. He isn’t in pain, Neil forced a nurse to give him something a while back and John hadn’t protested. The only reason Neil knows he hasn’t passed over just yet is that even with his eyes closed he seems to listen to Neil when he talks about his mother, his life, even just the fastest way to assemble a gun, just anything so that John isn’t left alone in his last moments. </p><p>When it happens it happens silently and easily too. He takes a last breath and then his chest doesn’t rise anymore, his hand going limp in Neil’s and his whole body stilling for the last time. Neil doesn’t want to cry but he’s bitten so hard into his lip the whole evening that it’s started scabbing over and blood pours out of the wound as soon as he touches it. He hisses and then bites into his hand instead, lets a few tears fall and then gets up and turns his back on John. He can’t stand to see John dead, he doesn’t dare look back because that image of John so still and pale will haunt him for the rest of his days. </p><p>Out in the corridor he scares the shit out of a nurse when he punches the wall in front of him repeatedly until his knuckles come away bloody, the pain not registering in his brain, and he keeps hitting it and hitting it until Ives is there and forcefully pulls Neill off, having to really put his weight in because Neil doesn’t seem able to stop himself.</p><p>“Neil, Neil, stop!” When nothing happens because Neil’s so out of it he doesn’t hear, Ives slaps him really hard across the cheek, the impact almost sending Neil to the floor, but Ives catches him before that happens. Neil blinks.</p><p>“Did you just hit me?” Regret flashes across Ives features, and it’s the most human emotion that’s ever been displayed on Ives face before, and then Neil suddenly stumbles and takes in a laboured breath and then another, clutching at his chest, because suddenly everything hurts. Reality tears through to Neil like acid, poisoning every cell in his body.</p><p>“Hey, Neil, Neil.” Ives crouches down beside him, gently grabs his face and forces him to look at him. To Neil it feels like his ribcage is caving in on itself, the grief suddenly so enormous that it feels like his heart has been torn out, leaving him walking around without it. John being gone feels impossible, and the terror of being left on his own rips through him so strongly he wobbles in Ives' grip. He is going to lose it, he is going to lose it, he is -</p><p>“Breathe with me Neil, okay, in and out, copy what I’m doing.” Ives voice cuts through and Neil looks at what he thinks is his face, his vision so blurry he can’t be sure.</p><p>“There you are, come on, in and out.” His breathing evens out somehow and he gets oxygen back to his brain, shakily he wipes his tears away, knows that if he starts crying he’s not going to ever stop and Ives holds him gently, stroking his hair and breathing in sync. </p><p>“Come on, let’s have someone look at your hand, it’s not looking good mate.” Ives says when Neil can breathe on his own again. </p><p>“I could still take you on.”</p><p>“I’d like to see you try.” Ives says without any bite and hauls Neil to his feet, gently helping him take a step forward, scared he’s going to fall. Neil knows he can walk on his own, but he appreciates the gesture from Ives nonetheless.</p><p>A piece of Neil’s heart is forever going to be left in this place, sterile and dark and depressing and it’s a horrible place for someone as vibrant as John to end his life. Neil will never forgive the world for it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He lets his hand be looked over though.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I am sorrryyyyyy please don't come with the pitch forks after me !</p><p>Also I'm not sure if I messed something up when uploading the text but I have like a feeling something went wrong, please no because there are a lot of words here now! Finger crossed though, I will read through it at some point and see if something is missing.</p><p>I have at least one more chapter planned for this, depending on how long it gets there might be another, but probably not.</p><p>We're nearing the end, and honestly THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for all the lovely comments people have left on this, it means the world to me &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In this chapter:</p><p>Neil deals with grief.</p><p>Lots of Ives and Neil bonding (platonic) </p><p>and the events of the movie finally come to play.</p><p> </p><p>I've upped the warnings for this fic, because as I was writing it it kept getting slightly more darker than what I had originally anticipated. So some warnings at the bottom of this if you want to read through it before you start, it's there. It's not graphic or anything, but just in case</p><p> </p><p>OKAY, so I didn't mean for this to take so long, but I ended up in a bit of a writer's block and couldn't get any of the emotions down for this. Then inspiration struck and because of that we have now reached 50 000 words on this beast, which in my head when I had planned this, was supposed to be 10, max 25 000. But nope, my brain had other plans for me it seems. </p><p>Thank you to everyone who has commented on this, it truly means the world to me &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neil’s wrist is bandaged tightly together when he enters John’s apartment, a painful reminder of the wall he put a dent in hours ago. It hurts, every time he moves his fingers jolts of pain shoots up his arm, but he had refused any painkillers for it, he wants the pain to ground him, he wants to be aware and lucid, knows he cannot afford to slip into oblivion even if he wants to. Ives had reluctantly let him go from the hospital facility, and Neil had taken a long detour to get here, just in case he was being followed by Ives or any other operative trying to keep an eye on him. This is John’s place and it should remain sacred for as long as it can, the thought of a clean up team being allowed in to erase any trace of existence of John from his life, makes a jagged aloneness nestled just underneath his ribs, expand with each heartbeat, hurting him so much it’s difficult to breathe. </p><p>He picks the lock, locks the door behind him and then walks straight to John’s bedroom and crawls into bed, curling in on himself and pulls the duvet over him. He inhales, and feels the faint smell of John on the sheets, bringing tears to his eyes, unwillingly. </p><p>His mother’s obsession and fascination with painting and colour had seeped into Neil’s awareness growing up with her, and right now the only thing he can describe this feeling as, is grey, it’s spreading through his body like an infectious disease, poisoning every cell in its way.  </p><p>Everything hurts. </p><p>Throughout the night, the only point of comfort Neil has is clinging desperately to John’s faint scent on the sheets, crying quietly into the covers.</p><p>Come morning, it’s just by sheer exhaustion he manages to fall asleep, face tucked into John’s pillow, holding tightly onto an old T-shirt of his.</p><p> </p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>“What about this one?” Neil asks, John hums and confusedly blinks his eyes open, trying to clear his head as Neil with John’s foot in his, presses down on a particularly sore spot, making John’s eyes fall shut again in pleasure. </p><p>“If you do that I am not going to be able to answer.” He says.</p><p>They are in the bath and Neil had poured too much of the fancy bath bomb he’d found in one of John’s cupboards into it, just because he wanted it to feel special and fancy, and now the tub is almost overflowing with it. The lights are off and candles have been lit around them, it’s cheesy and it’s so romantic Neil had gone weak in the knees when John had shown him, pleasingly adding that he definitely was a romantic. It’s intimate and homey, the light making everything feel comforting and safe, and it’s so far from what John and Neil usually do together it’s making Neil giddy with happiness. Ah if their enemies could see them now, particularly John all soft and pliant while getting his feet rubbed. No one would believe he’d be the same man that could kill you in two moves, if he’d feel like it. </p><p>There is a bucket of ice with champagne inside, and because Neil is nice he had added a diet coke to it, as ridiculous as it were, John was not a fan of champagne, but he had drunk some of his, just because it added to the whole vibe before he had switched it out for coke instead. </p><p>They’ve been in the tub for too long, Neil’s skin is wrinkled, but the water is still warm and when John had cheekily held is foot up for a rub Neil had rolled his eyes but found he couldn’t say no, especially not when John looked so relaxed, his mouth hanging open in pleasure and letting out sounds Neil can’t even bring out of him during sex, he’s enjoying it just as much as John is. </p><p>“It’s boring.” John begins and points to the small scar on his chest, above his right peck.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because I was 6 and fell off a bike.” Neil laughs.</p><p>“Okay, not the most exciting story.”</p><p>“My mom grounded me.” Neil lifts an eyebrow, fishing for more because John is rarely open about his past, particularly not his past before he became an agent.</p><p>“I stole the bike and then crashed it, she wasn’t happy.”</p><p>“Ah, I see, you could have gone down a different career path, been a master criminal instead.” John smirks and groans when Neil rubs at a particular spot with his thumb.</p><p>“I would have made a great criminal.”</p><p>“Would you now?”</p><p>“An excellent one, seducing all my mark’s eyecandy left and right.” Neil laughs.</p><p>“You think very highly of yourself and your seducing skills Mr.”</p><p>“I have it on good authority that I am skilled with not just my hands, but also my mouth.” Neil snorts but doesn’t disagree, just gives John a hungry look, John’s eyes darkening immediately. Neil has been wanted in the past, knows he’s attractive and knows how to play at his strengths, but it feels completely different being wanted by someone like John, smooth, assertive, strong, brilliant John who could get anyone in this world and somehow wants Neil just as bad as he wants him. It’s mind blowing and Neil thinks he will never get used to it.</p><p>“This one then?” Neil trails his finger up John’s leg and gently strokes a jutted scar that runs from his knee and down the back of his leg.  </p><p>“Some whack job with an arrow in Rwanda.”</p><p>“An arrow?” </p><p>“Yeah I know, thought he was fucking Hawkeye or some shit, got me pretty bad in the leg though, I had to walk into a hospital with it sticking out of my leg, made quite the scene.”</p><p>“Was this during your CIA time?” John cracks an eye open before he smirks.</p><p>“Wouldn’t you like to know.”</p><p>“Weeell, considering you know everything about me, I think it’s only fair.”</p><p>“I actually don’t know everything about you.” John reminds him.</p><p>“You know everything of importance.” John studies him for a moment, and his gaze is piercing, reminding Neil that John even when off his guard is incredibly perceptive, nothing getting past him. He closes his eyes again though and leans back. </p><p>“I don’t think that’s quite true.” Neil sighs and pulls at John’s toe getting his attention. John opens his eyes again.</p><p>“What do you want to know then?” </p><p>“Favourite colour?” John looks smugs as Neil rolls his eyes and pulls at John’s toe again. </p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“No.” He laughs. “I don’t know, I haven’t exactly been dating recently, I don’t know what constitutes getting to know people under normal circumstances.”</p><p>“Dating is overrated anyway.” John gives him a searching look.</p><p>“Sleeping around is a better alternative you mean?”</p><p>“We all need to let off some steam, and I didn’t know you were aware of that.”</p><p>“In that regard you aren’t exactly unusual Neil, most people in our profession do it on a regular basis.”</p><p>“Possible, but not you.” John lifts an eyebrow, almost affronted.</p><p>“Neil, you really need to stop putting me on a pedestal, I’m really not worth it.”</p><p>“I’m not -”</p><p>“You are.” He interrupts, eye piercing, no time for bullshit kind of look.</p><p>“Fine.” Neil agrees and pulls at John’s foot until he gets the hint and lets himself be pulled closer to Neil who smiles softly and gently strokes his cheek when he’s near enough, leaving a trail of foam on his face. John lets himself be kissed though, hums into it and puts an arm around Neil, pulling him closer.</p><p>“If we go again this water is definitely going to get cold.” John mutters against his lips, brushing his nose against Neil’s. He opens his eyes and finds John looking at him again, a look he’s started seeing on John’s face a lot recently, something sweet and vulnerable and something Neil isn’t sure exactly what it is and feels a little too uncertain about further inquiry. He pushes it down and kisses John softly again.</p><p>“Then we refill it.”</p><p>John rolls his eyes but kisses back hungrily and in that moment it’s all Neil needs.</p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>He’s rudely awakened by the memory, gasps and forces his dry eyes open. Neil feels hungover, his head pulsating in pain and his whole body aches like he’s been punched repeatedly all over. He’s gone through this kind of grief before, knows it’s his body having a physical reaction to the loss of someone he loves, but after losing his mother Neil pushed all these kinds of feelings down, refused to let himself get dragged under and knew the only way to stay afloat was to push himself harder than ever before and so after a while the despair had easened and Neil had been too busy with work to pay it too much attention. </p><p>But grief like that never quite leaves you anyway, it just finds other outlets to exist in, letting you know from time to time that you’re still carrying it with you. And it’s always burning, just underneath the surface, a constant in a life full of uncertainty. Neil’s learnt to accept it as part of him by now. </p><p>Outside it looks like someone has taken a paintbrush to the sky leaving it a depressing dark grey with rain heavy in the air, the cracks for once so filled in, the only thing able to filter through will be the drizzle. The apartment is dark because of it and Neil feels the dreariness of it both on the inside as well as on the outside.</p><p>He sighs.</p><p>His body is heavy, feels like led, and moving just to lie on his side is so painful it makes his breathing come unevenly. It reminds him of his coma except this is worse. Somewhere in the back of his head he knows that he needs to get up though and soon, the more he lies here the worse it will get. He takes in a laboured breathing, forces what feels like unwilling oxygen through his lungs, his chest heaving up and down. Even so his chest feels tight, like no matter how much he breathes it’s not enough. It’s like something has died inside of him, rotted his insides preventing him from functioning like he should.</p><p>He takes another breath.</p><p>Neil’s suit is wrinkled, it’s expensive like they always are, and getting them out is going to be difficult. Neil thinks he might just throw it away, it doesn’t matter anyway, it’s just a suit. When he sits up, slowly, the world spins on its axis and Neil just about manages not to throw up on the sheets, instead emptying the contents of his stomach on the floor, just about missing his muddy shoes that lie abandoned on the ground. Neil hasn’t eaten anything for at least 24 hours, so there’s not much in his stomach he can throw up, and soon enough he’s mostly just spitting and retching, trying to get rid of the acid taste that’s filled up his senses. When his bowel has been completely emptied, Neil stares at the disgusting mush on John’s floor and forces down the tiredness in his limbs, takes a step over it and then walks into the bathroom. He puts the shower on, crawls inside and sits down, clothes on, doesn’t care that it takes a while for the water to get hot and sits with his head between his knees, letting the water shut everything out. The room steams up as soon as the water temperature hits somewhat normal and Neil doesn’t care, feeling a lot like he doesn’t want to leave this room ever again.</p><p>He isn’t aware for how long he sits in there, only that when he walks out, nothing has changed anyway.</p><p>………</p><p>Neil has clothes he’s left on a previous occasion in John’s apartment. He peels his wet suit off and puts it into a plastic bag he’s planning on throwing away. Then he cleans up the vomit, scrubs the floor relentlessly until his fingers are red and hurting. He gets dressed and then starts walking around the place, not really sure what to do next, he feels so unfocused now, like he can’t quite grasp reality at the moment. He’s used to having a razor sharp awareness to his surroundings, but everything feels hazy now, like when you have a bad high and you go from having the time of your life to suddenly feeling shit scared and paranoid, limbs not listening and a strumming of uncertainty just underneath your skin. </p><p>He needs something to do, he needs a distraction. </p><p>And so, he isn’t planning on snooping, but Neil doesn’t really know what to do at the moment, so he starts, with a little pang of a bad conscience, to look through John’s stuff. Ever since Kat died Neil’s always felt he’s running out of time, from what he isn’t sure of, and when he met John he didn’t realise he was running out of time from with being with him. Now when he’s gone and left a hole the size of the fucking sun it’s hard to not see that Neil in the end didn’t actually know John at all. He knew who he was at the very core, caring, clever and had a burning need to save everyone he could. He was fiercely protective. He was gentle in a world that wasn’t. But Neil never knew what his likes and dislikes were, what his dreams were other than TENET, because he must have had those, no one grows up thinking they will create a secret organisation that is meant to protect the world, not even John. And there is no one in the world left for Neil to ask about it now, so snooping it is. </p><p>He starts with the wardrobe. It still smells like John, sandalwood and faintly of something citrusy, and Neil doesn’t last very long there, he leaves and goes into John’s study instead. Most drawers are empty, discarded pens and paper clips without coordination lie haphazardly around, some post it notes and uninteresting bank papers are all he finds. When he opens the bottom drawer a photo falls out. A young John with what must be his mother, black and white taken somewhere warm, both of them in t-shirts and shorts. Underneath it Neil finds a diploma from the university of Berkley, given to John for finishing a Bachelor in engineering of all things. John can’t help but wonder what his graduation photos looked like. There is a faded photo at the bottom too, one of John in the military with his squad, stationed somewhere unknown to Neil and he wonders how someone like John went from studying engineering to joining the military and then CIA. If only he had had the time to ask. There is a folded paper at the bottom and Neil opens it without hesitation.</p><p>‘Stop snooping’</p><p>Neil’s heart stops and then he huffs unbelievably, wipes the tears away that’s almost falling from his eyes because of the surprise. He has never seen John’s handwriting, and somehow he knows it’s his. Bastard, he thinks fondly, but makes sure to put everything back the way he found it. He goes into the kitchen then, in search of some food even though he isn’t exactly hungry. He finds some stale bread, puts on some peanut butter he finds in one of the cupboards and deems that to be an appropriate lunch, or maybe it’s dinnertime? He chews slowly and methodically, tries not to think about the taste, rather just focus on chewing and swallowing, just to get the food down. He forces himself to drink some water too, bypasses the bottle of unopened scotch in the cupboards, an expensive bottle and wonders if it was a gift from someone or if John’s bought something that ridiculously fancy for himself. Once again he is reminded of not knowing John and a pang of sadness goes through him, he reaches out, and blindly grabs the counter in support, knocking his hand painfully against the counter, a jolt of pain shooting through his wrist. It alerts him back to the presence immediately though, grounding him. </p><p>He is tempted for a second to take the bandage off and punch his fist against the wall again to feel alive, and it’s only the notion that he needs to go back to the past in three weeks' time that is stopping him from ripping into it. He cannot afford to not be at his best physical self when it’s time, even here and now, full of grief and sadness, he knows that, so the option of punching fists into walls are non doable at the moment. But there are of course other ways of feeling things that aren’t pain, but which have an equally effective numbing quality, Neil’s been an expert of using them for years. He’s out of the apartment before he even really has the time to think about it. It’s started raining lightly outside and the suit jacket he wears is too thin for the weather, but he doesn’t care, just walks briskly until he gets to a place he knows, a small hidden little bar with comfy but worn chairs, a fireplace and shit alcohol, but he’s been there before and he’s usually lucky in there.</p><p>He walks up to the bar, opens his mouth to order a vodka neat, but changes his mind at the last minute to order sparkling water instead. When he gets it he sips at it slowly, his face scanning the room for, well someone at least. It doesn’t take long, it never does of course but Neil makes sure to pick someone that looks the least like John that he can, because somehow that makes it feel less like a betrayal, and that doesn’t take long either. He’s wearing glasses, khakis, an ugly pullover that looks to belong on the bottom of a trash can more than it does on a person, but he has nice eyes and he isn’t too bad to look at, dark chocolate brown hair that looks a little unwashed, but not too off putting. Neil sighs, doesn’t feel much like waiting, isn’t even sure the guy would be brave enough to approach someone like Neil so he makes his mind up for the both of them and walks over, confidently, and sits down in front of the man that Neil realises now looks a lot younger than he first thought. </p><p>The man smiles shyly and Neil, Neil feels like shit. </p><p>“Hi.” He says anyway, approachable and open. The guy takes a sip of his drink, his hand shaking a little.</p><p>“Hi.” He says, voice smooth like honey and a day or two old stubble covering his cheeks. </p><p>“What are you drinking?” Neil says, it’s a bad line, a little silly and predictable, and the man seems to think so too, but he smiles gently anyway.</p><p>“Vodka lemonade.” Neil to his actual surprise, laughs, because it’s in a way really unexpected, while it also isn’t.</p><p>“That’s… that’s -” He tries to think of something nice to say, not often at a loss of words. </p><p>“Very university of me?” Neil can’t help but smile.</p><p>“Yeah, especially in a place like this.” It’s not the fanciest place, but it has standard, and this is where Neil goes when he isn’t completely and utterly desperate for a shag and wants some sort of resemblance to quality. The man looks around, shrugs and takes a sip.</p><p>“I don’t really drink normally, I’ve just…” He seems to decide if he should continue or not. He takes another sip, finishes the whole glass and puts it down, smacking his lips. “I’ve had a bad day.” </p><p>Me too Neil thinks. He waves for the waiter though and orders the guy a new drink.</p><p>“And the same for me.” He adds at the last minute and the guy smiles, it makes him look sweet.</p><p>“What’s your name?” Neil doesn’t know why he’s asking, he’s not here to get to know anyone. </p><p>“Chris, and you?”</p><p>“Neil.” It slips out before he even has the time to think about it and he wishes he had something other than sparkling water with him to hide his slipup. </p><p>“Nice to meet you Neil. Forgive me for commenting on this but you look -”</p><p>“Out of place?” He smirks. Chris opens his mouth but the waiter interrupts them with the arrival of their childish drinks. Neil takes a sip, immediately thrown back to his university days with cheap alcohol in shitty bars feeling invincible. He shakes his head to get the memory away. When he looks up Chris’ head is tilted and then he smiles wistfully. </p><p>“No, I was going to say you look sad.” Neil almost chokes on the drink, a sour taste taking over his mouth completely, making it hard to wash it away with his drink. He grips the armchair tightly and thinks about telling Chris to fuck off. </p><p>“Sorry, sorry it’s not my business. I guess I can just kind of relate to it a little bit. So I thought well why don’t I go to a bar, get drunk, maybe talk to some stanger and see where the night leads me, and then I got here and suddenly all the confidence I had went away and I just now feel like this was a bad idea.”</p><p>Now Neil glares and wonders if Chris is drunk. It makes him laugh though and he takes his glasses off to wipe them on his sleeve, a little nervously, but also kind of endearingly too. Neil drops the glare, he can’t be bothered. </p><p>“Sorry, I get chatty when I’ve had a few and I’ve clearly overstepped. My bad. Sorry.” Neil waits till he’s put the glasses back on and then for Chris to look at him before he levels him with an even and thoughtful look. </p><p>“That bad a day huh?” He asks, tone almost kind. Chris rolls his eyes.</p><p>“I got fired.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Yeah… and if I don’t have a job I won’t be able to afford to pay rent and if I can’t pay rent I will be evicted and then I’ll become homeless and have to move back home to my parents and well, I’m 25, who wants to live at home when they are 25?”</p><p>Neil thinks there are lots of people that don’t have a choice when they are that age, but he keeps quiet.</p><p>“What do you do?” Chris sighs.</p><p>“Security programmer.” </p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Yeah, and it shouldn’t be hard to get a job in that business I guess, so I shouldn’t mope. But I liked the job I had.”</p><p>“So why did you get fired?” Chris blushes, takes the glasses off to wipe them clean again, a nervous tick then, before he puts them back on again, a little bit more put together than before and looks Neil straight in the eyes, a dare. </p><p>“I got caught sleeping with a superior.” Neil laughs then, fucking unbelivable he thinks, and Chris looks a little self conscious about Neil’s reaction, like it wasn’t how he expcted Neil to react. When he’s gathered himself enough, only a few chuckles escape here and there he looks at Chris in what he hopes is a friendly look.</p><p>“Ouch, the boss’ son?” Chris rolls his eyes, smiles and looks into his drink.</p><p>“The boss actually.” Neil whistles, impressed.</p><p>“Nice, and he fired you?” Chris nods.</p><p>“Ouch, old and closeted?” He nods again. “Gave you promises that he would leave his family and all that?” Now Chris glares, fiercely and good for him for not being a complete pushover Neil thinks, before he chuckles.</p><p>“No, he did promise me a car though.” </p><p>“Ridiculous.”</p><p>“Yeah, very, it wasn’t worth it. I liked him, he was nice, the sex was good, the conversation was fine, but it wasn’t anything special. And yet I can’t even bring myself to be angry at him for firing me, there was never really any passion or love between us, so why feel upset over it?” Neil sobers up for a moment, somehow he can understand that. </p><p>“The real ones are hard to come by.” He offers and Chris nods, looks at Neil like he thinks he would know, and maybe Neil at the moment looks like someone that would.</p><p>“Well that warrants some drinking on your part at least.” </p><p>“And you?” Chris inquires and Neil shrugs, finds it hard to lie for some reason.</p><p>“A bad day.” He offers and Chris smiles and offers his glass up. Neil rolls his eyes but pushes his against it and then takes a sip of the terrible drink, the sprite really making the whole drink feel ridiculously sweet and not in a good way.</p><p>“I lost someone.” And Neil won’t say anything more than that, but it’s the truth and Chris is earnest and Neil is sleep deprived and grief stricken, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he can’t seem to lie at the moment.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” Chris gives him a sad and understanding look and maybe he’s lost someone too or maybe he’s just kind and that’s why Neil finds that he likes him, despite all.</p><p>“Me too.” He says tiredly. They sit in amicable silence after that for a while, ordering more drinks and rolling their eyes at each other, a little fondly as they continue drinking the bad shit. </p><p>“I can offer you a job if you want.” Neil says and Chris eyebrows raise, looking Neil up and down. </p><p>“What do you even do?” Neil smirks.</p><p>“It’s complicated. Private contractor, something like that.” Chris looks deeply skeptical. Neil laughs. </p><p>“Here.” He gives him a card and an address and Chris takes it off him, studies the card intently before he looks back at Neil. </p><p>“What’s the name of it?”</p><p>“If you want in and if you pass the assessments you’ll learn everything.”</p><p>“Very secretive of you Neil.” It feels strange hearing his name on someone’s lips that aren’t John’s and he finds he doesn’t like it, but he ignores the irk for the moment.</p><p>“Very, but you’re clever so you’re going to be intrigued which means you’re going to go there tomorrow and then you’ll be given a choice. It’s up to you what you do with it.”</p><p>“Sounds like spy stuff from a film.” </p><p>“Something like that.” Neil smirks and finishes his glass, leaves a couple of pounds on the table and gets up.</p><p> </p><p>“It was nice to meet you Chris, I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again, but good luck in the future.” Chris really doesn’t look like he understands, and maybe he also looks at Neil like he’s a little deranged. And Neil might be many things, but one thing he knows is when he meets good people. Chris is one of them and if he chooses to join he’ll be an excellent hacker for Tenet, he’s sure of that.</p><p>“Yeah same to you, erm goodbye.” Neil waves and smiles cheekily before he leaves the bar, feeling a little bit better than he did before. </p><p>He reads through the file, one last time, before he puts it into the sink and watches the flames burn the evidence of this operation away. It’s detailed, just like John said it would be, except for the last part of the mission, Russia, Stalsk-12 is sparse, and it’s sparse for a reason Neil can’t figure out why. John has always been secretive, and this is almost like the last nail in the coffin, what he’s left behind for Neil is a legacy full of furtive trails, all intertwined, and Neil’s been sent to figure it out. Trying to make sense of it here, from a distance is impossible. </p><p>He gets into John’s bed, this time, misses having him close by, the shape of his body, the snuffling sounds he sometimes makes in his sleep, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat next to Neil, calming him down when everything feels tumultuous around him.</p><p>He’s never going to feel it again. </p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>When Neil finally makes it into the office, John’s absence is deeply felt and Neil has to take a few deep breaths when he walks in the corridors, he never used to consider to be depressing and suffocating, but now makes them feel like they are caving in on him. People wear their grief on their faces, hollow eyes, sunken in features and they look scared too, unsure of the future ahead and Neil can understand it. If he wasn’t about to do his mission he’d be unsettled too about the future of Tenet. Vivian is not John, but despite that she’s going to make for a good replacement, even though it’s big shoes to fill.</p><p>But despite losing the man they never knew the name of, people work hard. They are determined, in a way they maybe weren’t before, while suddenly everyone seems to only be able to function when they are throwing themselves into their assignments. It speaks to John’s power, how admired he was, how respected he was by everyone who came into contact with him, and it means something to Neil that he was adored by them all. </p><p>He walks into Vivian’s office, doesn’t exactly announce his presence, but steps inside anyways, she looks tired when she spots him.</p><p>“Neil.” She says, surprise evident in her voice, and maybe she hadn’t expected him to be back this soon after losing John, but Neil’s had enough now, he needs to do something. </p><p>“Vivian.” He greets, pushes the chair out in front of her desk and sits down, long limbs in front of him. Neil might be in his thirties, but old habits die hard and all that so he isn’t about to suddenly learn to sit in chairs normally now anyway. </p><p>“I have a solution to our little money problem.”</p><p>“Oh?” She lifts a polished eyebrow, her messy curls drawn tightly back into a military styled bun, only the small escaping sliver of hair she keeps tucking behind her ear alerting Neil to her exhaustion. But she leans forward, clearly interested in the information. Neil takes out a check from his breast pocket and puts it down on the desk in front of them while her eyebrow climbs higher into her hairline, Neil shrugs.</p><p>“Do I want to know where you came by this amount?”</p><p>“We still need it don’t we?” Vivian relents, reluctantly, and she takes the check.</p><p>“We do, The Boss never did quite manage to solve the problem.”</p><p>“I know, it just recently got into my possession and I have been too busy for the past few days to bring this up.”</p><p>“I understand, well this will do quite nicely.” A little bit of her queen’s english slips through in that sentence, and while Neil wouldn’t have pegged her as someone brought up wealthy, it’s nice to know he wasn’t the only one. </p><p>“Good.”</p><p>It’s ironic isn’t it? That his dad, Andrei Sator, will work so hard to bring about the end of the world, trying to stop John, only for all the money that he gave Neil when he was kinder, is going to be used to fund the very organisation he will fight against. Neil doesn’t know if it’s karma or something, but it’s kind of perfect anyway. </p><p>“Also I have a new recruit lined up. I’m sure he will show up to Blacksite 13, he will do nicely, if he passes.”</p><p>“Are you tying up loose ends?” </p><p>“I might as well get ahead of myself.”</p><p>“Yes, He’s only told me what I need to know about operation ROAD, but you’re going to leave soon, correct?”</p><p>“That’s right.” Neil nods. Vivians nods too, a little sadly, like she knows something Neil doesn’t, or maybe she just has a feeling about what’s going to happen once he goes back. Either way Neil appreciates that she doesn’t try to offer any words of kindness, he doesn’t need them. </p><p>He leaves her then and spends the rest of the day working himself harder than he’s done before, he needs to be in absolute top shape for what he’s about to go through. Inverting himself so far back is going to be harder both on his body and on his psyche than what he can probably even prepare for, but Neil knows he can do it.</p><p>He has to.</p><p>For John.</p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>Neil is surprised to find Ives of all people on the rooftop that does not exactly qualify as a rooftop, just a door that leads to a hidden nook where people go to smoke. But it has a nice view, even when the floor is soggy with water that seems to never stop falling this month, and the few steps he takes towards Ives soaks his shoes through.</p><p>There is a nip in the air, windy this late of the year, and too cold to be out in just a thin jacket. He pulls it tighter around himself, hoping to conserve some heath. Ives doesn’t turn, just huffs annoyedly when Neil steps up close to him, their arms brushing against one another. The London skyline stretches out in front of them, the skyscrapers standing tall against the darkening sky, million little lights everywhere. It used to be home, now it’s just a destination.</p><p>Ives is smoking, he stumps one out and lights one up immediately after. Neil lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment or judge on what seems to be a habit born out of stress. Instead he holds his hand out and Ives rolls his eyes but hands it to him.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Neil asks, Ives only grunts. If Neil didn’t know any better he’d say that Ives seems to be upset. </p><p>“Getting ready.” He gruffs out, voice tight around the edges. So he is upset.</p><p>“Okay.” He takes a few drags and gives it back, looking at the city ahead, feeling Ives eyes flit back and forth between him and the view, unable to decide where to settle. </p><p>Suddenly there is a massive pang and Neil freezes for a moment, feels Ives draw his gun before both of them realises it’s fireworks lighting up all around the city.</p><p>Apparently it’s New Year’s.</p><p>“Happy new year.” Ives says disbelievingly. </p><p>“Happy new year.” Neil smiles sadly back.</p><p>“When do you leave for Finland?”</p><p>“Soon. And you?”</p><p>“Soon.”</p><p>Ives takes a few drags, seems to hesitate before he pulls his face back behind his unreadable mask.</p><p>“Don’t take it too personal if I am a dick to you in the past, it’s all for show.”</p><p>Neil laughs this time and gently claps Ives back, feels solid muscle underneath the military standard jacket.</p><p>“I’ve never taken it personally before, I don’t think I will start to now.” Ives huffs, meets Neil’s eyes and smiles ruefully.</p><p>“Good… how are you going to handle meeting Him?” Neil retracts his hand, stares stubbornly straight ahead and bites at his lip, his fists clenching against the railing, feels the cold seep into his skin. </p><p>“What do you think? It’s going to be fucking terrible.”</p><p>“Yeah… yeah.” He says, voice thick with emotion. </p><p>“But I made a promise to Him, to see the mission through so I’m going to do it.”</p><p>“A promise from you means that much?” Neil’s lip twitches and he nods.</p><p>“Of course.” </p><p>“I hope it’s worth it.” Ives mutters bitterly and Neil looks at him from his peripheral. </p><p>“You think it’s a bad plan?”</p><p>“No, no, the plan is brilliant of course. It’s His plan after all, but it’s risky and things need to happen exactly the way they already have, otherwise we’re fucked. And we’re going to be alone out there, and as far as I’m aware of what your mission actually is, you’re going to be alone too. There is too much uncertainty around it for me to feel comfortable.” Ives cracks, grimaces at the slipup and takes another drag. </p><p>“So you think I shouldn’t have to do it? Hell Ives if I didn’t know any better I’d say you care.”</p><p>“Fuck off.” Neil laughs and nudges Ives’ shoulder, who glares harder. </p><p>“My mom died when I was 24, I have a degree in physics from Oxford and my real name is Max.” Ives freezes, the cigarette slipping from his grip and both Neil and Ives watch as it soars through the air, falling slowly to the ground.</p><p>“What the fuck?!” Ives grits out, not angry, he looks nervous and Neil shrugs.</p><p>“We’ve known each other for a while and as you said, we’re going to do a risky as fuck mission in the past that could easily kill us both. Now you have something of mine, something I gave willingly. And proof that I like you.” Ives is quiet, hands wound tightly against the reeling, he breathes in and out before he opens his mouth.</p><p>“I was born in Peckham to a wife beating father and an addict mother and left home when I was 15, lived on the street, did petty crime and then enlisted.”</p><p>“I always knew you were military.” Neil says, doesn’t make a big deal out of what Ives’ told him, even though it makes his skin crawl. </p><p>“Well I always knew you were a posh prick.” Neil laughs. </p><p>“I was yes.”</p><p>“Was? I think you mean are.”</p><p>“Some habits die hard.”</p><p>“Yeah I guess.”</p><p>They stand quietly after that, hearing the laughter and the music and the happiness of people who celebrate the dawn of a new year, a new decade with hopes and dreams and fears that they will still have tomorrow and every day going forward, mistakes they will be allowed to make, trauma they will suffer and happiness they will get to experience, 1st of January, it’s any other day really, but will ironically still feel like a fresh start for most people.</p><p>Somehow it’s fitting Neil’s going to the past then. </p><p>They don’t say much after that and then when the time nears 1am Neil leaves, there is a helicopter waiting for him. </p><p>When he’s by the door Ives’ voice stops him.</p><p>“Neil…”</p><p>“Yes.” He doesn’t turn.</p><p>“Be careful.”</p><p>“You too.” He says back.</p><p> </p><p>…….</p><p> </p><p>And so backwards starts.</p><p>It starts in Mumbai like John had said it would. </p><p>And there he is, John, dashing as always, younger, less polished, uncertain, funny, a bit rogue and more trusting than ever. Neil’s hands shake so badly around his 3rd vodka tonic he can barely hold onto the glass. He sees him out of his peripheral vision where he sits by the bar at the Bombay Yacht Club when John walks into, dusty pink suit, swagger and confidence that are a little rough around the edges, but looking determined. He sits down and Neil holds onto his glass so tightly he thinks it’s going to crack, he leaves his heart by the bar and sits down next to the man he loves, who doesn’t know him back. </p><p>“It seems you need an introduction to a prominent Mumbai local on short notice…” He pauses, the practiced words fall off his tongue with ease. “I’m Neil.” He introduces, holds his breath and breathes through the fucking pain in his chest, hoping it doesn’t show how unsettled he is when he holds his hand out. John takes it with ease, trusting and not yet the man Neil loves. It throws him off kilter completely for a moment, the pain of seeing John alive and breathing cutting through Neil like a knife. At the same time, when their hands touch, sends a thrill through him, like a current, lighting up the synapses in his brain. John’s hand still feels the same.</p><p>“I need an audience with Sanjay Singh.” There is a part of that confidence that Neil knows so well there in John’s voice, and as Neil retracts his hand, his fingers clenching and unclenching reflexively, the contact sending a shiver up Neil’s spine, his heart falling in his chest when John’s face remains blank. Neil raps his knuckles on the table, to kill the urge he has to reach out again. </p><p>“That’s not possible.” He gulps, can’t totally hide his voice from shaking. </p><p>“Ten minutes tops.” John says, unawares, as he looks Neil up and down, categorises him, zones in on the details. Neil is disheveled, hair all over the place, a little tipsy and already sweating through his suit from the heat. He isn’t sure what John sees, but as far as first introductions goes he’s probably doing bad. </p><p>“Time isn’t the problem, getting out alive is the problem.”</p><p>John looks down at his lap thinking. The next lines come to Neil unwillingly.</p><p>“Would you take a child hostage?” John shakes his head slowly. “A woman?”</p><p>John’s eyes narrow as he says, sure of himself. “If I had to.” But it pains him and it pains Neil even more. “I’m not looking to make much noise here.”</p><p>The bartender walks by, Neil gestures for him.</p><p>“Vodka tonic and a diet coke.” John looks at him, piercing, and for a moment he looks so much like Neil’s John he gets nervous. “What?” He gulps out. “You never drink on the job.”</p><p>“You’re well informed.” His tonce is laced with curiosity and Neil thinks he’s impressed too, and he smiles wrily, hopes it doesn’t look like a grimace and that John can’t hear the beating of his goddamn heart. </p><p>“It pays to be in our profession.” Neil averts his eyes, cannot stand to look at John, shakily takes a sip of his drink and wants to die. </p><p>“Well I prefer soda water.” John says defingly and Neil loses his professionalism once again, smiles ruefully at John.</p><p>“No you don’t.” John huffs out a half laugh and is the first one to avert his eyes. </p><p>“How’s your parachuting?” </p><p>“I broke an ankle during basic training… Singhs’ house isn’t tall enough to parachute off from.” He says, leaning back and leveling Neil with a little bit of an unimpressed look. </p><p>“But it’s bungee-jumpable.”</p><p>“I don’t think jumpbable is a word.” Neil sees a smile almost take over his face and he shrugs it off.</p><p>“It may not be a word, but it may be your only way out of that place...or into it for that matter.” He adds as a last thought and sees John look bemused, leaning towards Neil like he wants to know more. </p><p>Neil smiles.</p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>The mission in Mumbai goes smooth, carried out without a problem and John is sent on his way again, alone, and Neil watches his parting back on a crowded street, biting at his lip to prevent from calling out. </p><p>The next time they meet up is in Norway, Neil is sober this time around and John hangs onto every word Neil is saying when he tells him of the plan, that he plays off as his own, but is definitely all John’s brilliance. Neil, just like the plan says, scopes the Freeport out, takes in the security arrangements and gets the tour of the place down to the very last detail. He knows the place inside and out already, the file of the freeport ridiculously detailed, all John’s doing of course, but he pretends for the sake of it, and it’s good to see it in person before he’s forced to go through it. He’s gone through a simulation of this whole scene three times in his own time, doesn’t think he will be the one to slip up, so it all depends on John, the younger John, to get it right. Yet when John asks, disbelievingly if Neil wants to crash a plane Neil cannot help but smirk, shrugs quicikly and point out that John shouldn’t be so dramatic. </p><p>Everything runs mostly smoothly, Neil plays along, does feel a little stressed when he’s trapped in the vault and John’s lock pick breaks, but they get out, breathing heavily against the corridor walls as they get air back in their lungs. Neil knows what’s going to happen now, and when he whispers that they are not alone, the trepidation he feels, it's real. The Rotas vault is where it needs to go right, every step of the way. The first time he had seen the turnstile he had been fascinated by it, but now all he feels is dread. The room is eerie, quiet, just like before a storm, when the world slowly prepares itself for catastrophe. John is on the other side of the glass, distorted image, but alert and apprehensive nonetheless. Neil hears John step on the broken glass on the ground, looks at the bullet holes still smoking, sees the gun on the ground on John’s side. Takes a deep breath, calms himself. </p><p>“What the hell happened here?”</p><p>There is a pause. “It hasn’t happened yet.” Neil can’t help but be secretly proud John’s picked that up, he’s quick, even when he doesn’t fully understand, not yet anyway and he conceals it with a quizzical look at John instead.</p><p>Suddenly there is a loud humming in the room and Neil braces himself, he knows what’s coming. The black clad figure, another John, jumps out and at Neil, just like he’s expecting it to go. He lets himself be pushed over, only dares a quick look at John who is fighting himself off. He runs after future John, his heart in his throat when he hears the gun go off in the blue vault, but keeps running anyway, unable to look back at what’s happened. He races down the corridor, gets around a corner and grabs the man, wrenching the mask off him. He stops, looks into John’s eyes, masks it into surprise, before he turns and runs the same direction he just came from, going as fast as he can. </p><p>He gets into the room just as John pulls the gun out and Neil grabs him, desperate and unable to not be absolutely stressed over what could go wrong if John pulls the trigger. </p><p>“No. Don’t kill him!” He shouts, John looks at him, confusion evident in his eyes. “We need to know if you’re compromised.” He lies. John wrenches free from Neil’s grip, puts the gun on his older self’s arm and Neil thinks he’s going to pull the trigger, hears instead another version of John groan in pain as John steps down on his arm, hard and his heart contracts in fear. </p><p>“Who are you?!” He demands. “Who sent you?”. Air starts blowing on the backwards figure, sucking underneath the broken roller door and he slides impossibly underneath the door, that slams shut no longer broken. The room grows completely still and Neil tries to calm down, feeling somewhat disbelief that they’ve managed to do it, despite John’s reassurance that they would. </p><p>In the hotel room at dawn Neil’s calmed down again, he sips at his tea as John watches him, eyes following his every move. Neil fights down the urge to make John his tea the way he likes it, and clenches and unclenches his fists to fight the urges that keep growing stronger within him, down.</p><p>“I’ve seen too much and I’m still alive, which means you’ve decided to trust me.”</p><p>“Or I’ve lost my edge.”</p><p>“Oh you’re edge is intact.” Neil reassures, lets a smile slip through. </p><p>“There is a cold war.” John begins.</p><p>“Nuclear?”</p><p>“Temporal.”</p><p>Neil hates the word.</p><p>“Time travel?” He allows himself to sound skeptical.</p><p>“No technology that can invert an object’s entropy.”</p><p>“You mean reverse chronology. Like Feyman and Wheeler’s notion that a position is an electron moving backwards in time.”</p><p>“Sure, that’s exactly what I mean.” John says, and there is something there, in the way that he looks at Neil now, impressed yes, but something else too, something reminding him of his John.</p><p>“I have a master’s in physics.” He clears his throat. </p><p>“Well try and keep up.” Tone almost joking, his fingers clench too, like Neil’s and he watches for a moment, wonders what is going through John’s head. </p><p>“The implications of this are -”</p><p>“Beyond secret.”</p><p>“So why did you take me in?”</p><p>“I thought we’d find the drawing and a couple of boxes of bullets.” He huffs, like he can’t even believe what he’s seen. </p><p>Just you wait, you haven’t seen anything yet, Neil thinks. </p><p>“You were as surprised as I was.” He evaluates.</p><p>“I’m going back to Mumbai for answers. I’ll set you up as go between. But remember to you, all this is about plutonium, if you let it slip you know more, it’s going to be dangerous for you, and when we’re done, they’ll kill you.” John sounds serious and Neil’s heart tugs, but he says, almost confidently. </p><p>“Won’t you have to do that anyway?” Self deprecatingly. </p><p>“I’d rather it was mine decision…” Heavy, serious and so very John that Neil’s heart stops for a moment. In all the years he did this, he never managed to kill the spark that makes him care about people, even in this line of business. </p><p>“So would I…” He looks down. “I think.” He looks back up, shares something between them, and John smiles. </p><p>…..</p><p> </p><p>Neil finds himself in Tallinn. </p><p>He hasn’t been here since he was a child, and can’t help that when he reads the street signs, recite the words in his head, the language translating itself into english, unwillingly. </p><p>This is the place where things will go tits up for John, throwing him straight into the chaos and mind bending thing that is inversion, while it will happen in a controlled manner for Neil, if all goes according to plan. He’s in a maroon jacket, cheap Neil thinks and John looks far from as polished with the expensive suits Neil is used to seeing him in. They meet on the street, Neil acts dumb, tests John on what he knows so far. Things go according to plan when he mentions dead drops where Sator picks up the messages from the future. This is the part of the plan that makes Neil anxious. He has tried to prepare himself for what seeing his father and mother will do to him and he comes up short. All he feels is too much and too little all at the same time, too little about Sator, too much about Kat and it makes him feel unpredictable, like he can’t trust himself. Unable to rely on himself in the field isn’t something he’s ever struggled with before, he’s always been able to trust his instincts, his gut feeling, always in one way or another. He guesses he’s going to have to place his trust in this John instead, to see it through. </p><p>Neil gets the car, sets the mission up, contacts Ives and asks him and his team to be on standby, relying on them to know what to do when he needs them. Leaves no paper trail and feels himself detached from the whole situation, knows what he needs to do, knows what John needs to do and hopes it goes the way it has to. He conducts a checklist in his head, ticks one off when John, dressed as a firefighter, gets onto the moving truck. The police turn up right on time and John, after a while, cimbs back in, orange case in hand containing the algorithm and gets back into the car. Neil wishes it could end here. </p><p>He speeds away. </p><p>He puts on the radio, hears the inverted Estonian, and knows it’s now time. </p><p>The backwards Audi shows up like the file said it would, weaving through traffic, it drives past and then turns, still backwards, chasing them down. Neil tries to keep the car steady.</p><p>He sees his parents, sees Kat bound and gagged, looking terrified as Sator holds a gun to her head and Neil fights down a wave of nausea, tells John that he can’t give the algorithm to Sator, hates himself for it. </p><p>“This isn’t plutonium.” </p><p>Ahead of them is a crashed, smoking upside down SAAB and time is running out.</p><p>“It’s worse goddamn it!” And Neil cannot hide the panic he feels when John considers what to do. Even though Neil knows that it needs to happen, he also knows to this very day who his dad is deep down, has seen and experienced it up close, was always apprehensive about him, remembers his smile, has images in his head of him looming over his mother, remembers her sobs and screams - and he shakes his head, doesn’t have the fucking time to have a ptsd attack right now and he clenches his fists around the steering wheel, loses all feelings in his hands and focuses on driving. </p><p>He ticks it off when John throws the case over the windshield of the SAAB and into Sator’s hands. </p><p>“He’s getting away.” He hopes John is too focused on Kat to hear the tremor in his voice as he argues about leaving her there. John doesn’t hear of course.</p><p>“He left her in the car!”</p><p>The motherfucker did indeed and Neil wants to kill him, wishes he could do it himself. So he turns, lets his father slip through his fingers, and races to pull alongside the Audi Kat is currently lying in, fighting for her life to get out of. John throws himself into the car, gets control of it as Neil speeds by, sees in the rearview mirror that it comes to a stop, and he breathes a little easier. The car skids to a halt and Neil jumps out, ready to get to Kat and John, but another car pulls up, in between Neil and Kat and John and he barely has the time to duck behind the car before two bullets embed themselves into it, too close for his comfort. He gets his gun out, instinct taking over, and shoots back, gets one down.</p><p>Fuck he thinks. He forgot for a moment this would happen. He pulls his radio out.</p><p>“Sit tight. I’m calling in the cavalry.”</p><p>“What cavalry?!” John’s static voice comes through the radio, he ignores it, dials Ives instead.</p><p>“Ives -” But Neil doesn’t have time to say more, more of Sator’s men start to pull up and suddenly he’s pinned, he hears the trunk window explode as the automatic weapon embolishes it, Neil barely managing to protect his face from the exploding glass, pulls his arm out and turns his head to shield himself from the blast. He hears Sator’s car pull up, crash into the Audi with Kat and John in and he crouches down, aims and shoots again. He sees when John is dragged from the car, kicking and screaming and he knows it needs to happen but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch.</p><p>“Ives, for fuck’s sake, get here!” He shouts into the radio, barely managing to take cover under the cover fire coming from the men. His car has been demolished, soon he won’t be able to use it for protection any longer.</p><p>“Yeah, on my way.” He hears Ives. </p><p>The gunfire stops suddenly, the men running into the cars racing off after Sator. Neil knows where they’re going and against his will he sinks down on the road, sits and tries to breathe through the growing panic. It takes Ives 5 minutes to show up, with Wheeler apparently there too, and his tact team, most of them unknown to him. By then he’s gotten up, looks more put together and is cleaning glass out his forearm when Ives walks up, automatic rifle drawn. He nods, looks Neil up and down before he puts the gun down. </p><p>“That doesn’t look sanitary.” He comments with a look at Neil’s arm.</p><p>“It's a distraction. You and me both know what’s about to happen now.” Ives grimly nods and while he may think Neil is worried sick for John, that’s not the case. His mother is in there, about to be shot with a fucking inverted bullet, and a part of him is happy he won’t be there to witness it, he doesn’t think he could ever live through it. </p><p>“Come on, let’s get to the port.” Neil gets up and joins the team in a car.</p><p>“Do you need help with that?” Wheeler asks, holding out a first aid kit and Neil shakes his head, needs something to do with his hands so he doesn’t think too much. He hisses as he wipes his wrist with antiseptic, makes sure to get all of the small bits of glasses out, ignoring the pain and blood dripping on his pants and puts a plaster over it for protection. He rolls his sleeves down to cover it and Wheeler seems at least satisfied with it.</p><p>When they get to the port Neil wants to rush inside, storm the place, shoot anyone in sight... he doesn’t. They need to wait ten more minutes at least before they are allowed to. Neil freezes though, cannot, even though he has read this over and over, exactly how it goes down, contain his reaction to the gun that goes off, putting the bullet inside his mother. He fights down the urge to throw up and Ives shoots him worried looks he ignores. He focuses on his breathing, needs the world to feel sharp around him, and then it’s time. </p><p>The team bursts inside, Neil forced to remain at the back. He breathes again, collects himself so that when he walks through the doors John won’t see him look absolutely broken, nothing to tip him off something is wrong. He hears the shooting, hears bodies fall to the ground and then hears Ives call it clear. He starts to head inside. The room is dark, in disarray, the red and blue lights flashing, it’s sinister. Neil suppresses a shudder. </p><p>“Where did he go?”</p><p>“The past.” Ives’ curt reply comes. </p><p>“She’s been shot!”</p><p>“Get her on this side.” Ives commands. “Was she shot with an inverted round?”</p><p>Neil walks inside, sees John nod, worriedly and how Ives grimaces in trepidation. </p><p>“This is Ives. He’s one of us -” Neil gestures but gets cut off, John banging his fist against the wall in fury, grabs Neil roughly and throws Neil up against the wall, his elbow pressing down on his windpipe. John’s face is a mask of barely concealed anger and worry and maybe betrayal too, lurking at the edges. </p><p>“US?! Who are these guys?” He demands. Neil struggles against John, but John, even when unfocused and seething has always been a little stronger than what he is. </p><p>“Priya’s. Ours.” He forces the words out. Neil feels John put his arm against Neil’s throat more forcefully and he struggles harder to get some air into his lungs, feels slight panic treating to untether itself in him. </p><p>“How did Sator know about the ambush?”</p><p>“Posterity. An ambush on the streets can’t stay out of the records.” He chokes out, sees Ives look unsettled too, but he holds his ground. </p><p>“Bullshit! He knew every move we made! Somebody talked, was it you?!” And he sounds absolutely furious now, betrayed and he presses harder on Neil’s windpipe and Neil starts to gasp for air now.</p><p>“No.” He whispers, promises, grabs onto John’s wrists, feels his heart beat just underneath it rapidly. They struggle and Neil feels pain shoot through his arm as John presses into his open wounds and he hisses against John’s hands. </p><p>“At every stage you’ve known more than you should. I’m asking you one more time. Did you talk?” Neil’s never been scared of John, but now, when he is this unhinged and desperate and doesn’t know who Neil is, eyes glazed over in betrayal more than any other emotion, he feels it, gulps down and feels it darken in front of his eyes as he can’t breathe anymore. He tries shaking his head, can’t get the words out, his voice isn’t working, not until Ives steps close and puts his hand on John’s arm, who flinches, his grip on Neil easing slightly and he gets some air inside of his lungs.</p><p>“No.” Neil says, sounding weak to his own ears.</p><p>“Nobody talked. They’re running a temporal pincer movement.” Ives retracts his hand, fleetingly looking at Neil and then back at John again.</p><p>“A what?” John forces out, disbelieving, overwhelmed. </p><p>“A pincer movement.” Ives says like it’s obvious and Neil wants to shout at Ives in frustration, because it isn’t simple, for god’s sake it took 5 hours for Ives to grip it when Neil explained it to him in his early days. But John relents slightly, pulling back just a little. </p><p>“But not in space, in time. Half his team moves forwards through the event - he monitors them, then attacks from the end, moving backwards, knowing everything.” Ives explains. John finally lets Neil go and he heaves out a breath of air, stops feeling light headed and coughs to clear his throat. John shoots him an apprehensive look, something like wariness with regret mixing in his eyes. He doesn’t trust me Neil thinks.</p><p>“Except where I stashed the plutonium.” John adds, looks at Neil, distrusting now as he sags against the wall.</p><p>“I told you it’s not what he’s after. And you just told him where it is.” Neil says, accusingly, hopes it passes for that at least. He gathers himself together and John looks at Neil, guilt flashing across his face. </p><p>“I lied.” John steps back and Neil’s eyes widen, because that was apparently left out of John’s little brief and his eyes find his mother, on the gurney, bleeding out.</p><p>“Jesus… You lied about it?” Neil feels the ground shifting underneath his feet, looks disbelievingly at John. </p><p>“He couldn’t verify it from the inside of the room, he’d have shot her anyway. Lying is standard operating procedure.” Neil sees the logic but betrayal still burns hot inside of him, because John sounds cocky, sure of himself and Neil feels like he wants to punch something, break his fists, beat it bloody to feel something else than this. </p><p>“It’s spread too far.” One of the soldiers says and John’s face drops, his mask of cockiness gone and worry is evident in his voice as he moves to her side. The betrayal disappears, John might be wary of Neil, but he cares, about the world and about Kat and it matters. </p><p>“Meaning what?” He demands.</p><p>“She’s going to die.”</p><p>“Can’t you do something?” Neil sees the panic and yet, because he is still a little angry leans against the wall and sarcastically mutters.</p><p>“Standard operating procedure huh?” He sees John grab Kat’s hand, the worry and the fright in his eyes that he might be the cause of her death crystal clear in them.</p><p>You’re not. But Neil doesn’t say anything.</p><p>“Can’t you stabilize inverse radiation by inverting the patient?” Neil knows it’s going to work, and he wishes he would have fucking thought about this when John was dying in his arms in the future, why didn’t he think of it then?</p><p>“That takes days -”</p><p>“Let’s go.” John interrupts and points at the turnstile.</p><p>“We took control over this machine minutes ago, before that it was Sator’s.” </p><p>“How long will she live on this side?”</p><p>“Three hour tops.” One of the medics says. John doesn’t need to think about it for long, determined and kind he makes up his mind. Neil’s anger disappears, it’s not a point holding onto it, it doesn’t matter. </p><p>“I’m taking her through. I’m not going to let her die. I’ll take my chances out there.”</p><p>“Chances of what? We have no way of bringing you back.”</p><p>“We find another machine.” John says like it’s simple.</p><p>“A week ago? Where?” John looks at Neil and he sees a spark of recognition there. </p><p>“Oslo.” He says. </p><p>“The facility is impregnable. It’s inside an airport security perimeter.”</p><p>“Not last week it wasn’t.” Neil adds helpfully, confidently, shrugging. </p><p>“We’re going in, you might as well help.” John argues, and there’s something there, a trace of future John who commands a room that just listens when he talks. Ives rolls his eyes, shakes his head but joins in, unwillingly. They move, Neil grabs onto the gurney, forces himself to look at Ives, listen to his voice and not look down at Kat, dying in front of him. </p><p>They get through to the other side, the blue side.</p><p>“She’s stabilizing slowly, I’ll clean and close. The rest is time.”</p><p>“How long does she need?” John asks as they start moving further into the room. </p><p>“4 or 5 days, a week tops.” </p><p>“Hey Neil, figure out a way to get us to Oslo. I’m going back out there.” Neil lets Kat and the soldiers pass as he turns, reminded of his John when he speaks like this, reassured and confident, giving orders with ease. He’s just there, underneath the surface, tucked away somewhere in there away from Neil, but he is there. </p><p>“To do what?”</p><p>“To stop Sator getting away with the whatever it is that I just gave him.”</p><p>“You didn’t.” Neil assures. “You lied about where it was… Wait.” Realisation dawns on Neil. “You’re going out there for her?” John doesn’t hesitate.</p><p>“He threatened to kill her in the past...if he does, what happens to her here?” Neil’s eyes flit away, he’s uncertain, he can’t give an answer because he doesn’t actually know. They’re dealing in theoretical stuff, stuff he has no idea could ever work, things that weren’t mentioned in the brief because there is no way of knowing for sure.  </p><p>“It’s unknowable.” He admits. “If you’re there to make a change, you’re not here to observe its effects.”</p><p>“What do you believe?” And he looks at Neil, searching, almost like he trusts him, at least enough to be given an honest answer. And Neil wishes he had one with certainty, even though he knows he’s going to have to let John do it, he needs to see it, to understand it.</p><p>“What’s happened happened. But we need to save her here and now, and if you go back out there you might hand him exactly what he’s after.” He tries to plead, desperate and John studies his face, looks like he’s found what he’s looking for. And then he says with certainty, the ‘no point to argue with him voice’, stubbornly, refusing to play by anyone’s rules than by his own. Almost like his John.</p><p>“Don’t let them take her back through there.” And Neil nods, gives John an earnest look.</p><p>“I won’t.” He promises, John nods, appreciatively, gives Neil a weighty look, and takes his jacket off.</p><p>“You can’t stay here.” Ives interrupts and Neil turns. </p><p>“And we don’t have much time. So find us a nice cosy shipping container that just came off from Oslo.” He orders, voice stern as he walks past Ives, glares, and demands he falls in line.</p><p>“This is cowboy shit. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into if you go through that door.” Ives is angry, well maybe fake angry because Neil isn’t sure how much Ives knows, but it’s been made clear to everyone that John needs to go through the door and out to the other inverted side. He has to feel it to believe it. </p><p>Neil hears Wheeler give John a crash course as he finds a container that will have to do for them and hurriedly starts to pack stuff into it.</p><p>John walks determined for the door, asks Neil for the transponder and then the door hisses open, John putting the mask on, and then he disappears.</p><p>As soon as John is gone Neil turns to the side, his stomach turning violently, and he starts to throw up uncontrollably, hand braced against the wall for support as he empties the contents of his stomach on the ground. </p><p>“Get the fuck out! Out I said!” He hears Ives order and people start to move around him while Neil’s whole body shakes with effort as he furiously pukes his guts out. His heart is beating so quickly and he isn’t getting any air into his lungs and the puke smells so bad it sends him off again. </p><p>The day finally catches up to Neil, and it lodges something so fierce in Neil’s throat he thinks it’s going to choke him. </p><p>“Neil.” Ives comes closer, he is worried, looks almost scared as he grabs Neil’s arm to support him, everything reminding him of the day John died except Neil’s body is having an even stronger reaction to it. “Neil.” He’s closed his eyes, but Ives moves him, away from the puke and helps him sit down on the ground, his whole body shaking and his breathing coming unevenly.</p><p>“Neil, please breathe, you’re hyperventilating, take deep breaths.” Neil shakes his head, his teeth clattering so hard he can’t even get words out. </p><p>“N-no. I c-can’t.” </p><p>“You have to, deep breaths come on in and out.”</p><p>Neil tries, and regrets it immediately because the pressure on his chest doubles and for a second Neil really thinks he’s going to die here, his heart will give out and he’s going to choke to death. He opens his eyes hoping it will help somehow, another mistake, his eyes find the gurney and Neil flinches out of Ives’ grip who is so shocked he doesn’t have the time to prevent him from falling to the ground. But Neil does, hits his head on the pavement in an effort to get away from what he’s just seen. Pain shoots through his face and he groans, but he pushes his back hard against the wall so he can feel the cold surface through his thin shirt, pulling his body close, chest tucked against his knees, feels the panic attack coming, body preparing for battle.</p><p>The unwanted images come….</p><p>Because now Neil is 6 years old and he’s playing in The Castle, racing cars in the living room, making sounds, laughing and his dad slams the door to his office open, furious, when his eyes zone in on Neil who covers down, expecting a blow that doesn’t come. Feels his body freeze in fear, heart lodged in his throat. Kat stands in the way, her eyes blazing in a fury that matches her husband’s. She grabs his hand and wrenches it away from Neil and Sator is shocked and it gives Kat a moment to grab Neil off the floor and flee up the stairs away from his dad’s fury and fists. Neil hears him trash the downstairs living room in anger and Neil isn’t allowed to ever play with toy cars again.</p><p>“Neil!” Ives’ voice is distant, like Neil is under water and he can’t hear him clearly.</p><p>Another flashback flashes. Kat on the floor, Sator towering over her, screaming and Neil with scrapes on his knees, tears from falling on the ground outside, stops and he shouts. Sator’s fist is raised and Kat freezes in panic as she sees Neil. His dad smiles, cruelly, gleefully, he looks happy and Kat scrambles away from underneath him to put herself in front of Neil, holding a hand out to shield him.</p><p>“Not my son.” She looks small compared to his dad, but her voice is strong, resistant but he laughs, throws her away and picks Neil up, he is 8 and he is unable to fully comprehend what’s going on. Kat shouts after them and Neil is carried into the office he’s never been allowed into before, hears Kat throw herself against the locked door, screaming and crying, begging eventually to let Neil be. Sator puts Neil down on a chair and looks at him, the lacerations on his knees bleeding, blood slowly dripping down his legs, bruises on his hands. His dad slaps him hard across the face and it stings and Neil must make a sound because he hears distantly Kat screaming not to dare touch him. But it’s not the slap that hurts the most, it’s the blossoming of shame that grows in Neil when it happens. A sense of being weak, of not being enough, of being different, and something that deserves to be handled roughly. He’s always carried it with him, unknowingly, because he’s always felt like he was damaged, even when he was happy.</p><p>It doesn’t stop there. </p><p>He gets slapped again, and Neil is 8 and he understands that his dad wants him to be tough, so after five slaps and bruises as big as fists across his cheeks, he bites at his lip so hard he draws blood but he doesn’t make a sound the last time and his dad is finally satisfied, a proud little smirk on his lips. He leans down, puts himself at Neil’s eye level and gently reaches out to stroke his cheek, a kind gesture from a hard man. </p><p>“Good job boy, you are my son after all. I want you to be tough in this world Neil, the world is unkind, you need to learn to stand up for yourself.” The words make no sense to Neil, he feels disorinatined and lightheaded, but deep down he somehow understands what they mean. Men don’t cry, and Neil doesn’t cry until he’s 24 and his mother dies. The rest of the evening his dad spends eating ice cream with him, watching films on the couch and the next day he’s bought a new set of toy cars that they play with, out in the garden in the sun.</p><p>It’s the only time Neil’s ever been hit by his dad, but he’s been to therapy and not even that could bring this memory out. But on a dirty floor in Tallinn after seeing John in the flesh, his mom, Sator, the memory crystallizes clearly in his mind, the fog surrounding the memory suddenly evaporated in front his eyes and he gasps, turns on his back and digs the palm of his hand into the cold floor, trying to ground himself.</p><p>“Neil.” Ives' blurry face comes into view, eyes creased in worry and he leans close, places a hand on Neil’s face, presses onto the spot he hit his head on and Neil jerks, the blurriness clearing from his view though as the pain slams him into reality.</p><p>“There you are, fucking hell Neil, what the fuck?”</p><p>“Ptsd.” He grunts out and Ives makes a sound at the back of his throat.</p><p>“I fucking know what ptsd is you cunt.” He snaps and Neil chuckles, feels his body contract in pain, everything hurts and he is exhausted suddenly.</p><p>“Shit Neil…” Ives whispers and he looks like he wants to say more, Neil sits up, unsteady and Ives helps him, holding steadily onto his wrist. </p><p>“There are a lot of things you don’t know Ives, things I can’t tell you. I have baggage I’ve unknowingly suppressed and it’s all coming out suddenly, it won’t happen again.” His voice sounds weak to his own ears and Ives growls, Neil looks at him in shock.</p><p>“For fuck’s sake, I don’t - I don’t care that it happened, it’s fine, we’ve all been there. I’ve done 3 tours in Iraq for fuck’s sake, I’ve seen this in my men. Hell after my first tour I used to cry every night on the bathroom floor. This isn’t any worse than that. But I’m worried about you.”</p><p>“Don’t be.” He croaks out and puts his head in his hands, feels a headache coming on, a clamminess beginning to seep through his skin. Ives presses a bottle of water into Neil’s hand and they shake too bad still for him to be able to open it so Ives does that too and then Neil downs the whole bottle in one go. </p><p>“Do you have some painkillers? I’m about to get into a container for a week and if that doesn’t kill me, this headache will.” Ives sighs, tiredly, gets up and walks over to where Kat is, Neil’s eyes unable to follow him and comes back with another water bottle and some ibuprofen he gives Neil, who swallows them down easily. </p><p>“He should be back soon.” Pointed tone and Neil knows. </p><p>He will be back almost dead, will wake up on a stretcher in an orange container, where Neil will be forced to spend time with him and Kat, trapped in an enclosed space surrounded by endless sea. For the first time since this mission started Neil feels like he’s taken on too much, doesn’t know how he can do it.</p><p>“You can do it. You have to.” Ives says like he can read his mind and he stands in front of him, puts his hand in front of Neil’s face, an anchor, a lifeline. “You have to do it.” He repeats. “For all of us, for your version of Him because you promised and your promises mean something. You will save the world.” He sounds so sure of himself, like he has hope and it’s so unlike Ives that Neil looks up, meets his eyes, sees there’s calm in them, like he believes Neil can do it and Neil wants to believe in it too, wants to be worthy of the hope Ives has in him, the hope John had in him, even to the very day he died, the devotion and love John held for him, insisted on having in him even when Neil thought he was a piece of shit. John was always the missing puzzle piece in his life and he said he would save the world, for John and for himself so he can leave it better than the way it has been.</p><p>He has to believe in that, at the very least he needs to have faith in John because John had faith in the world. He gulps down the bile, the nerves, the anxiousness and the self doubt and takes Ives’ hand and lets himself be pulled to his feet.</p><p>…..</p><p> </p><p>John comes back to it on a stretcher in a dimly lit container on its way to Oslo, with Kat on the other one, Neil’s back to her and John in his direct line of sight. Neil’s made sure to pack travel sickness pills in the bag, the waves can be heard from in here, low and tumbling around them.</p><p>“You left Ives and his team a hell of a clean up.” He sounds tired even to his own ears, and he is, beyond exhausted if he’s going to be honest with himself. John sits up, throws the heat blanket off himself and looks around in confusion.</p><p>“The heat transfer was reversed. You may be the first case of hypothermia from a gasoline explosion in history.” He offers up as an explanation and John chuckles, it’s nice, a comforting sound and Neil almost smiles too. In here it’s calm again, they are as protected as they can be and it’s a moment of levity, to breathe and for Neil to sleep. He needs to sleep, desperately so.</p><p>“At this point nothing surprises.” John looks around the container, eyes on Kat for a moment, flitting back to the other side when he hears the waves crash against the side of the ship.</p><p>“We on our way back to Oslo?”</p><p>“In a Rotas shipping container.” He smiles now, a little proud of that and John does too, for a moment, and it’s a real one. It settles something in Neil though, something that’s been forced loose ever since John died in his timeline. But a darker look passes over John’s features and the happiness is washed away. </p><p>“He’s got the material Neil. I handed it to him on a plate.” He sounds disappointed, a little guilty and Neil sighs. It had to happen.</p><p>“I warned you…” Neil says, frustrated at not being listened to even though he harbours no real anger.</p><p>“What’s happened’s happened, yeah I get it now. But it’s tough to take things on trust from people speaking only half truths.” Pointed, almost accusing, annoyed, he wants answers. Neil opens and closes his mouth a few times.</p><p>“That’s not fair -” He tries to defend, weak to his own ears.</p><p>“You were a part of this even before we met. Were you working for Priya?” Some levity in his voice, less accusing, more curious and frustrated. </p><p>“No.” He says, looks John in the eye.</p><p>“Who recruited you Neil?”</p><p>“It can’t possibly do you any good to know that right now.” Neil fears that John’s going to find out too soon, and some of that fear slips through now, his voice laced with panic and his eyes search John’s face who huffs in annoyance and gets up from the stretcher, to put some distance between them. Neil stands up too, tries to salvage the moment, slips up completely and in his panic says.</p><p>“When this is over, if we’re still standing and you still care, you can hear my life story, okay?” He’s almost begging, feels John’s disappointment which is worse than his anger is, as John paces, glares at Neil and walks up to Kat, who has opened her eyes.</p><p>“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” He tells her, sinecerse, regretful and Neil closes his eyes, can barely stand to look at the two people he loves most in this fucking world, not knowing who he is. He feels his hand begin to shake again, and he forces it into a fist, trying to hide the tremors. </p><p>“You need to tell me what’s going on.” Kat demands, voice clear through the haze of pain and Neil’s heart beats quicker, that’s his mom alright, never ever fucking backing down. Brave, always brave.</p><p>“Apparently Neil here knows more about it than I do.” Hurt, stubborn and he juts his chin out, turns back to Neil, looks pointedly at him. “Good luck pal.” Last words are said harshly and Neil’s patience is starting to slip, frustration making its way through him.</p><p>“By telling Kat anything we’re compromising her in Priya’s eyes.” He tries to reason. John just looks unimpressed.</p><p>“In Priya’s eyes she’s already compromised. And she has a right to know she might die.”</p><p>The moment of peace and some quiet has evaporated before them, and because John is unpredictable at best, a little unhinged at worst Neil’s been thrown underneath the bus again and he feels the headache coming back on. </p><p>“Am I going to die?” Kat interrupts Neil’s thoughts and he’s surprised to hear she doesn’t sound worried. </p><p>“Not if we have something to say about it.” John reassures her.</p><p>“And we do.” Neil backs him up. </p><p>“Who are you?” There is no recognition in Kat’s eyes, and it hurts, but it’s better like this, that she doesn’t know who he is. He looks different from what he did almost 12 years ago when she died, changed so much in the years he worked for MI6, changed even more the years he worked for TENET. Kat’s voice is tired too, pain evident, but she’s also using the voice Neil used to associate with being used with his dad, when she’s slightly disassociating from the world, never not listening, but trying to protect herself from further hurt. He kicks a box out and sits down by her side, looks at her just above her forehead and into her blonde hair, cannot fully meet her eyes just yet.</p><p>“Let’s start with the simple stuff. Every law of physics operates the same forwards and backwards, except one. Entropy.”</p><p>Kats seems to pick it up rather quickly too, she doesn’t ask many questions, only a few as Neil tells her all she needs to know. By doing this he’s sending her down her set path too, one that cannot be altered either. </p><p>In the corner of his eye he sees John flex his elbow, feeling out some pain. He rolls up his sleeve and on his dark skin there are patches forming, something unknown still to John.</p><p>It will bruise first until it starts to bleed and John will figure it out soon enough.</p><p>“Are you injured?” Neil asks anyway, Kat’s eyes flitting to John to who comes shuffling slowly forward. </p><p>“What’s the algorithm Neil?” And so, here they are. And John is demanding now, using his voice in a way that says not to lie. So Neil doesn’t, just takes a deep breath and tells him.</p><p>Including my son. The words ring in Neil’s ears as he as gently as he can plunges the needle into Kat’s skin, watches as she passes out, Neil wishing for a similar feeling. Gently and carefully he puts her arm underneath the duvet, blocks John from the view as he squeezes her hand, wishing he could reach out to her so she would understand. She never knew that when she thought she was saving Neil as a child, John pulled him right back into it. He doesn’t regret it, could never fault John for the choice, he didn’t know. And at the end of the day it was best for Kat she never knew at all. He misses her though, her quick wit, sarcasm and imagination. He wishes he could tell her about John, how things were alright for him, how he got a taste of happiness, of love, and it was good for a while at least. He looks at his mother, eyes closed, pale but still fighting, always fighting, even when the world was against her. That was Kat alright.</p><p>“You should sleep too.” He tells John at last who watches him with something in his eyes. “It’s important for the journey ahead, our bodies will need it.” John studies at Neil, sighs frustratingly, and drops the nonchalance, he looks worried instead. </p><p>“You should sleep, you look unwell, I’ll take the first watch.” And Neil for once doesn’t have the energy to argue, his resolve slipping hours ago, he just nods, drags himself towards the nearest stretcher and pulls the duvet over himself, crawls in on himself and closes his eyes, lets the waves rock him to sleep.</p><p>And he finally gets to rest.</p><p>He wakes up and finds John is watching him, something softer in his features than ever before. Neil swallows and coughs to alert John he’s awake, stretches himself out and yawns, rubbing away the lingering tiredness he feels.</p><p>“Your turn.” He gets up from the bed and John huffs, almost smiles at Neil but goes to lie down. When Neil’s certain he’s fallen asleep too, he must also be exhausted, he checks on Kat again and finds her awake, eyes clear and vivid. </p><p>“Your name is Neil?” She asks and he gulps and nods, pushes some of his hair away from his face and she smiles at the gesture. </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Is that all I’m allowed to know?”</p><p>“Yes.” She huffs and rolls her eyes.</p><p>“Are you hungry, can I get you any food?”</p><p>“I could eat.” He goes in search of the food packed in one of the bags, brings out some water and nutrition bars used on space stations and comes back, helps Kat drink some water and holds the bar out for her as she nibbles slowly down on it. Neil sits down on his other hand, forces it to remain still and for the pain to let it ground him. He’s a good spy under normal circumstances, had always found it easy to disassociate on missions, turn off his feelings and get stuff done. It’s much harder now, he’s feeling wrought out, tired and not at all like himself, like everything has been stirred inside of him, displaced, fumbling in the dark trying to search for the right emotions. But he has to start thinking about this mission like any other, if he’s going to get through it. When Kat’s finished eating she studies Neil’s face for a moment, then her eyes track to John, breathing heavily on the cot. </p><p>“Don’t worry, he’ll forgive you.” Neil sucks in a sharp breath, eyes unwillingly traveling to John then down at Kat, who has a somewhat knowing look in her eyes. His mother has always been perceptive, even during unusual circumstances. And if she’s picked up on something already, how bad is he really handling all this then?</p><p>“W-what?” She chuckles, gently, but it turns into a wince as the pain grows again and Neil readies another dose for her, the more rest the faster she’ll heal. </p><p>“Just let him come to terms with it and he’ll let it go. He feels betrayed, hurt maybe too, it’s going to be okay.” And for a moment it’s so very much like his mother while at the same time it isn’t She was never this optimistic with him, never seemed to fully believe in love when he grew up with her. But now her eyes look alive, hopeful, amused too, and she looks younger like this, when she has a moment of levity. Neil doesn’t know what to say and Kat beats him to it once again. </p><p>“It’s nice to see that everything isn’t so heternormative anymore, spies can be, well queer? Gay? Whatever you label yourself as, it’s nice to see it.”</p><p>Neil laughs because he’s so shocked and Kat smirks, a little proudly. Neil runs a hand through his hair, a nervous stupid tick that he used to have, got rid of it during his MI6 days, and seems to have been triggered back in 2020. </p><p>“Gay.” He tells her. “And times are changing.”</p><p>“Good, it makes me happy knowing my son will grow up in a world that’s a little more accepting.” Neil gulps down the pain, averts his eye and nods like he understands. </p><p>“Yeah, y-yeah. That’s good for him. He’s lucky to have you as his mother.” Something sad passes over her features before it’s replaced by love, love she has for Max, for the boy who grows up to be Neil, sitting in front of her now, set on a mission to save the world. </p><p>The one who will be saved and condemned. </p><p>The world really is playing a cruel trick on him. </p><p>“You should rest.” He tells her and she nods like she has no objections, must feel somewhat safe with the two of them as she willingly gives her arm over to Neil to sedate her. He does, gently and when she’s fallen asleep he strokes her over her cheek, it’s soft like it’s always been and he smiles sadly before he searches for food for himself.</p><p>John comes back to it when the banging of the container wakes him, blinking his eyes open in confusion.</p><p>“We’re on a truck, it shouldn’t be too long now.” Neil offers as an explanation and John groans, alert almost instantly, but still looks to be tired, just like Neil is. He checks on Kat, still sleeping as he grabs a water bottle for John, hands it to him and sits down on the box of weapons. John takes it, their hands brushing as he gives it to him and Neil doesn’t dare look at John, but he must be more tired than Neil thought because his breathing stutters for a second, before he clears his throat. Neil doesn’t say anything. </p><p>They sleep in shifts and time passes.</p><p>Neil’s lost count of days, he’s sure John has too, but he’s almost starting to fall asleep on what he thinks is the 4th day when John interrupts it.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking, we’re their ancestors. If they destroy us, won’t that destroy them.” It’s almost philosophical the way John asks it and Neil takes a deep breath, feels too tired to sit up and hopes John can follow him while he tells him things he knows all too well. At the very least John’s anger seems to have disappeared, or at least for the moment put it aside, instead set on burying the battle axe, choosing to trust Neil, for now.</p><p>“Bringing us neatly into the grandfather paradox.” Voice hoarse with sleep, John frowns.</p><p>“The what?” Neil slowly turns, lies on his back so he can meet John’s eyes.</p><p>“If you went back in time and killed your own grandfather, how could you even have been born to commit the act?”</p><p>“What’s the answer?”</p><p>“There is no answer. It’s a paradox. But in the future those in power clearly believe that you can kick grandpa down the stairs, gouge his eyes out and slit his throat without consequence.”</p><p>“Could they be right?” Worried, a little on edge, and longing to know more. Neil sighs.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter. They believe it, so they’re willing to destroy us. Can I go back to sleep now?” Neil’s tired, exhausted, angry at the future, knows this fight too well, has been in it for years now, feeling useless and like whatever they did in the future and in the past wasn’t enough, that this, what they are going to do here will be the final nail in the coffin for destroying the future’s hope of winning. But he’s tired, can’t help but be. </p><p>“No, I’ve thought of something else.” Of course you have Neil thinks.</p><p>“Great.” John ignores the sarcasm.</p><p>“This, reversing the flow of time, doesn’t us being here now mean it never happens? That we stop them?”</p><p>“Optimistically I’d say that’s right, yes.”</p><p>“And pessimistically?”</p><p>“In a parallel world’s theory, we can’t know the relationship between consciousness and multiple realities. Does your head hurt yet?” He teases, to be a prick and because he wants this conversation to be over. John looks confused and mind blown and intrigued at the same time, in only a manner that John can do.</p><p>“Yes it does.” Neil chuckles, looks at Kat.</p><p>“Try sleeping. He advises and closes his eyes. </p><p>He hears John sigh but he must relent to Neil’s logic because Neil can hear him shuffling around for a bit before he seems to settle down too.</p><p> </p><p>The issue with inverting back like this is that it takes such a toll on one’s body, it’s like having a continuous hangover, or an illness in which no matter how much you rest there is still a lingering slowness to your bones, sluggishness and a certain travel sickness that can kick in. Human bodies are not meant for this kind of extensive journey, especially trapped in a container together like this. In here they exist in a vacuum. </p><p>Things become slightly montone, and Neil either sleeps, checks on Kat, and does push ups as a way of handling it all. John joins and the push ups become a childish competition that offers a moment of, well fun, a word Neil is hesitant to use around anyone these days. But it is, fun, and they somehow bond over the week they spend traveling back to Oslo. Kat heals too, body becoming stronger as the time passes, and her pain subdues and she’s awake for a little longer each day. They don’t always speak, but she’s alert and listens, especially when he talks about inversion and theories surrounding what they are doing, on some level she seems to understand, and John listens intently too, his face edging on wonder when Neil exposes part of his brain that has always loved science, ever since he was young. </p><p>Then, suddenly, after what feels like ages, there is a sudden loud thud and then stillness. They have arrived. Kat sleeps through it, Neil is awake, not as tired as he has been and John gets up, moves to the peephole to look outside.</p><p>“Shit, they didn’t take us inside.” He swears.</p><p>“What do we do?” He asks and it only takes a moment for that brillant analytical mind of John’s to jump into action.</p><p>“We use the breach. The chaos right after impact. Get ready.” John starts moving and Neil gets the bulletproof west back on.</p><p>“Is she healed enough?” He asks and Neil shrugs.</p><p>“I don’t know, I haven’t done this before.” He shakes his head. Kat is better, but this is about to be a bumpy as fuck road so he can’t tell for sure.</p><p>“Well fuck it, we have to chance it.” John gives Neil a determined look, something passing between them, trust that Neil will do what needs to be done, a remnant of them in the future, operating without words. </p><p>“I guess so.”</p><p>Some time passes, until the ground is wet, investigators, clean up crews and firemen have all made it onto the scene. Water flows up onto the plane’s wing to put the fire out, and the firemen start to work the scene in order to get the wreckage away and start evacuation. </p><p>“We get Kat through the breach, I take care of Sator’s men and secure the vault, then you bring her through.” Then he hisses, groans, as he pulls his arm into the sleeve.</p><p>“How’s your arm?”</p><p>“Not good.” He groans and now he will see the hole in the fabric and Neil can’t help but wonder if he’s put the pieces together yet. Neil turns, straps a respirator onto the gurney, gently reaches down to put the mask on Kat’s face and then gives her a sedative, just in case. </p><p>“We move once we hear the engines.” John says, getting the gear on, moving around.<br/>
Neil tightens the straps around Kat, makes sure she is secure and then puts a reflective blanket over her, just in case. He sees John flex his arm, sees the blood on the ground, can’t help but be concerned.</p><p>“You’re bleeding, let me take a look.” And John stops in his stress and does, and Neil would have been allowed to tend to it if they had some more time, if it wasn’t for the building whine of the jet engine alerting them both that it’s time to move. He lets go of John’s arm and straps the mask onto himself, sees John do the same and then he yanks the doors up and out they go and into the chaos. </p><p>Neil tries to breathe through the mask, realises with some surprise that he hasn’t been inverted in a while where the world is mad, and it takes some effort for him to get used to it with the people running around, debris flying everywhere and people trying to put a stop to the fire. It’s loud, and it’s the one thing he’s never managed to get used to. But they press on, making good on their time. </p><p>There is going to be a shockwave soon and when it comes John’s the one to pull both him and Kat underneath the fuselage for protection, as curtains of fire start gathering around the wings, centered on the half destroyed jet engine. He checks on Kat, sees that she’s alright, still breathing and they move again. They clear into the building, in front of the roller doors, and soon it’s time. </p><p>The debris in front of them starts shaking, they duck as the massive build of energy climaxes, roaring around them wildly, and then, the reverse explosion as the jet engine reassembles, loosely attached to the wing, happens and John gets up on the loading dock, gun drawn, and Neil loses focus for a moment because this looks absolutely insane.</p><p>“I’m going inside. Wait here.”</p><p>The loose jet engine starts shaking back and forth and then it turns, blasting air, hard at John that with its inverted thrust sends John smashing through the bottom of the roller doors and straight into the room with earlier Neil and him. Neil barely has the time to duck away before it happens. </p><p>Then he has to wait until John fights off himself to he can clear the way, it feels like it takes ages, but it probably doesn’t, and then there he is, running backwards, he’s made it then, then signals for him and Neil starts moving, pushes the roller doors open and gets the gurney through there, closes it after himself. Sees and feels the smoke around him being let back in, stops around the corner to see himself and John walk backward away from the Rotas vault. He gets into the vault, pushes Kat and the gurney through the door and gets out on the other side. Once there he quickly jogs, finding his way back out where John will wait with the ambulance. He sees John look relieved when he gets there and he helps Neil with Kat on the gurney and into the back, then pulls Neil in, before he gets into the driving seat, sirens blasting and driving off. </p><p>Neil gets into the seat in the front, takes the mask of and rubs a hand through his face, pushing the sweat away. John glances at him.</p><p>“You knew it was me coming out of that vault, why didn’t you say?”</p><p>“That’s a lot of explaining when someone’s about to put a bullet through their own brain.” He starts taking the bullet proof vest off. </p><p>“But afterwards -” John pushes.</p><p>“With things the same I knew you’d be okay. What’s happened happened. If I’d have told you and you’d acted differently...who knows what would have happened. The policy is to suppress.”</p><p>“Whose policy?” </p><p>Neil grins, cocks his head.</p><p>“Ours my friend.” And John looks at him and then he fucking laughs, finally and grabs Neil’s hand, like they are actually friends, looking happy for a moment.</p><p>“We’re the people saving the world from what might have been.” He says, lets John, if he hasn’t figured it out yet, know that they are actually, for real on the same side. </p><p>John smiles.</p><p>They drive the ambulance to a deserted parking garage and move to the back, checking on Kat, who is breathing. Neil checks the dressing of the wound, finally understands where she got the ugly scar from that she for some reason didn’t seem to hate when he was young.</p><p>“Kat?” John asks, a little nervously. Kat’s eyes open.</p><p>“I’m here.” She says, voice only stuttering a little. She sounds tired. </p><p>“It will be quite the scar, but you’re okay. We did it.”</p><p>“Did what? Andrei’s got the algorithm, you don’t know where he is.” Neil groans internally, because while he’s very aware of that, of course Kat’s the one to point it out.</p><p>“Or where.” He looks at John, who is thinking hard.  </p><p>“Get Priya here to Oslo.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“If I don’t do something, in two days she’ll tell me about the 241.”</p><p>“Nothing can change that.”</p><p>“We’ll see.” John says with certainty and Neil hides his proud little smile by checking on Kat again. John motions for Neil to follow outside and he does. </p><p>“We’ll rendezvous in 1 day, get her somewhere safe... I trust you, okay.” He looks at Neil when he says the last part, heavy, sincere and Neil’s heart tugs. After a hellish two weeks, they have finally gotten to this point, and he exhales.</p><p>“Yeah, she’ll be safe. Here, this is a secure line, contact me when you’ve seen Priya.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“Be careful, Priya… is tricky.” John smirks but nods, takes the radio and then they part ways. </p><p>With John gone Neil contacts Ives, already on standby of course in Oslo, and gets himself to their location. Kat’s sleeping again as he drives to the abandoned Tenet black site on the outskirts of town, getting there without trouble. A team of medics come for Kat and Neil follows them, but at a slower speed, finds Ives out of his military gear, strangely enough, as he leans over a table, looking through papers lying across it, a whiteboard in the corner, full of strategies. Neil scans them quickly, sees charts and maps, Stalsk-12 on one of them, flight paths and much more.</p><p>“Leave us.” He commands and the team falls out without questions, Neil gives him an impressed look.</p><p>“While you were busy with your missions with the boss I was busy training a special forces team for Tenet inverted missions.”</p><p>“Seems you did a good job.” Ives smirks, proudly.</p><p>“How are you?” He looks him over and Neil shrugs.</p><p>“On standby from -” He almost lets the name slip and Ives eyebrow raises. “He will contact me in one day for the Trondheim location, is everything ready to go?”</p><p>“Pretty much yes.”</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>“What are you doing now then?”</p><p>“I trust Kat is in safe hands.”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>“Then I’ll need to rest, Stalsk-12 is going to be tough and I’ve spent the better part of a week inverted in a box…” Ives grimaces, doesn’t envy Neil is pain but before he’s allowed to go Ives throws a sandwich at him that Neil barely catches. When he sees it’s a BLT he wishes he would have let it fall to the ground. Ives chides him and throws him a banana and a water bottle too.</p><p>“And take these.” He holds his palm open, tablets, all vitamins of different sizes and he swallows them down with a big sip of water and finally Ives motions for him to follow him to his sleeping quarters. He gets an empty room and a bed, sees a black duffle bag on the floor with his clothes, the room is military standard but compared to where he’s been sleeping recently it will do him well, and then he showers and shaves and starts to feel a little like himself again, before he goes to sleep he puts an alarm on, 2 hours before John will call and then he falls asleep immediately. </p><p>…..</p><p>They get on the boat that’s taking them to Trondheim, everything is ready for when John joins them again, looking more thoughtful than ever. He’s gained more information and Neil wonders if he even has an inkling that he’ll be the one to create what they now are.</p><p>Neil is in fucking military gear, he hates it with a passion, it’s cheap and it’s ugly and the green fleece he’s wearing is itching at his neck. He can’t for the life of him understand why Ives enjoys wearing it so much, it should be banned forever. But it does him well in the northern winds this high up north on the coast of Norway, where the company is inverted sea birds and angry waves making a disconcerting sound as the crash against the hull. He walks into the room where Kat and John are having a conversation, Kat sounding angry as she accuses John of having killed lots of people.</p><p>“Not with a dead man’s switch.” He interrupts, starts taking off the oxygen mask and disposing of the tank. </p><p>“A what?”</p><p>“The fitness tracker he wears…”</p><p>“He’s obsessive about his health.” Kat agrees. </p><p>“It’ll be linked to a switch. Probably a simple email burst, revealing the location of the dead drop, set to fire if his heart stops.” He rubs his hands against each other, trying to get some heat back into them after his short walk over in the wind. John is giving him an almost fond look as he slowly starts to warm up again.</p><p>He finds himself much more rested than he has in a while, ever since he set foot in 2020, skipping out on one meeting the other day to sleep instead and when it’s over John finds him to tell him things he already has a certain knowledge of. Neil isn’t stupid, he’s well aware of the stress he’s been exposed to recently, including losing John not even a month ago, and how it has taken a real fucking toll on his body, and how it makes sense that all moments he gets where he doesn’t have to be alert and constantly aware, his body screams for rest. But the sleep he’s managed to gain the last two days and the vitamins and solid food he’s eaten, has helped making him feel a little better, and Neil thinks that physically he’ll not be more prepared than this for Russia. </p><p>“His death activates the algorithm. He dies, the world ends - no one dares kill him.” John explains.</p><p>Realisation dawns on Kat, and slowly she pieces it together, what an nihilistic piece of shit  the man really is and she shakes her head.</p><p>“No, you’ve missed the point. He’s intending to end his life.” John, who has for a moment thought he’s been one step ahead, fleetingly looks at Neil, and then gets up, takes a step towards Kat, almost like he’s in a hurry.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“He’s dying, inoperable pancreatic cancer.” Kat’s tone is cold, her face is just barely hiding the fury and hatred she has for the man. And isn’t that ironic, both his parents would have died of the same fucking disaes, his grandmother meeting the same fate and Neil really is convinced now that the Barton-Sator line is cursed. </p><p>“And he’s taking the world with him.” John concludes, disbelieving but also doesn’t seem surprised. It’s very much Andrei Sator, the world fucked him once and now he’s fucking it over worse.</p><p>“If he can’t have her, no one can.” She mumbles.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Something he said once. He has a child for god’s sake.” And look what he did to it, to me, to you, Neil clenches his fist in anger, sits down by Kat’s side, hides his face from the both of them. </p><p>“He gets to choose the time and place for the end of the world. What moment? What does he choose?” Neil asks. Kat looks confused, her brain working at a quick speed trying to figure it out. But it’s John who gets there first.</p><p>“You told me about a holiday, where you let him feel loved…”</p><p>“Vietnam.”</p><p>“You said he vanished, what day?”</p><p>“I-I went ashore with Max, he flew off. I don’t know what date it was.”</p><p>Neil remembers the yacht, the trip, Vietnam and having food poison for two days, but despite it, how it had been nice. His dad had worked, but he had made sure to take an hour off each day to spend with them, Kat had been smiling, almost even laughing, and Neil had burnt his shoulders in the sun. </p><p>“The 14th.” Neil jumps in, interrupting his own flashes of being 12 and feeling happy with his parents on vacation. That had been a lie. “Ten days ago. He was in Ukraine stealing a section of the algorithm from an American team.”</p><p>“At the Kiev opera siege, how the hell do you know about that?” Neil looks up from the ground he’s been staring at, at John who is frustrated with him again, who knows Neil is lying, who trusts him still but hasn’t pieced it all together yet. </p><p>It’s not the right time.</p><p>“The point is.” Neil rebuffs him. “He wasn’t on the yacht, so that’s his window.”</p><p>“To come back to that golden moment, have it be his last.” Kat interrupts, picking up on the slight tension between them, something threatening to pull them apart again. </p><p>“Everyone’s last. We need to lift the algorithm from the dead drop without Sator knowing. If he believes it’s in there he kills himself.”</p><p>“And not the rest of us. Where’s the deadrop?”</p><p>“Knowledge divided my friend.” Cocky, but kind. You’re learning, Neil thinks, hides his approval.</p><p>“You’re not going to tell me?”</p><p>“Ignorance is our ammunition.” He turns back to Kat. “But I need you back on that boat.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“You have to stop him killing himself until we know that the algorithm is out of the dead drop.”</p><p>“But if I’m caught there… and my son sees. I don’t want those moments full of anguish if they’re going to be his last.”</p><p>“They’re not.” And he says it with such conviction, that even if Neil wasn’t proof it all worked out, he would believe in John too. He has that goddamn effect on people.</p><p>John gets up and Kat shoots him a look, Neil shrugs.</p><p>…..</p><p>The file Neil was given back in his own time containing Stalks12 had been sparse at the very best. Each section before that had been down to the very last detail of what would happen, what Neil would need to say, how he would need to guide John on the way, without it ever being too obvious. But Stalsk-12 had been less detailed than anything of John’s previous work. Neil isn’t sure why that is, knows that he’s about to find out why soon. He has the time and coordinates for his own death, but it doesn’t have to happen yet, he just knows that dying will be the last piece of it all, the thing that ties it all together in Russia, that will put an end to it. So because he’s unawares, he trains for this, practices lifting weapons off the floor while inverted, spars with the soldiers being drilled by Wheeler, both inverted and uninverted and trains in the mission room with Ives and John, to get a sense of what’s going to be expected of him out there. </p><p>Neil is at the back of the boat the last day before he inverts to the 14th, mask on, fingers flexing, missing a cigarette to smoke, it would have been a fitting image somehow. Ives joins him.</p><p>“Stalsk-12…” Ives begins.</p><p>“It’s going to be mad out there.” Ives hesitates.</p><p>“I’m going to assume now, but, my guess is that you don’t have any military training?” Neil shakes his head, admits as much.<br/>
“Well it’s my area of expertise, and Neil… it’s hard to prepare oneself for it, it’s massive, loud and it’s scary as hell. Do you know what to expect once you’re out there?” Neil looks at Ives and he finds Ives looking back at him fiercely, almost angrily, a little like John tends to do when he’s worried and wants to be able to protect his friends, the people he cares about and Neil doesn’t know what to say. </p><p>“I can only hope all my training has prepared me for this, we’re going to have to have faith, the both of us, that this will work.”</p><p>“Yeah… but we’re going to have to rely on Him to see us through, to see it through.”</p><p>“You don’t think he’s up for the job?” Neil glances at him and Ives is frowning, looking at the darkness around them, sees a lighthouse blink somewhere in the north east, he snaps back, worrying his lip between his teeth.</p><p>“He’s different, it’s hard for me to put the two of them together.”</p><p>“He’s in there somewhere. He just needs to understand and once it does and it clicks he’ll grow into the man that recruited us both.”</p><p>“He’s so….”</p><p>“Unhinged?” Neil teases and Ives snorts but nods.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“I think he’s handling it all pretty well, considering.”</p><p>“He’s running straight on fucking adernaline, if he continues like this he will burn out.”</p><p>“He won’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“You, my friend, are biased.” Neil snorts, can’t disagree.</p><p>“Maybe… but you’ve seen what he becomes, what’s happened happened, which means it works.”</p><p>“It fucking better, 2020 is a shitshow of a year, this insane plan he conducted somehow, better be worth it. I want to sleep.”</p><p>“It will.”</p><p>“You know something I don’t?”</p><p>“Always.” Neil smirks and Ives rolls his eyes. Neil is sure Ives knows something he doesn’t too, so it’s only fair. </p><p>“Foppish pricks with clever brains, unbelievable.” Neil hasn’t heard that insult in a while, finds himself missing his earlier life now, even though it was shit at times too. </p><p>“Will we see each other again?” Ives asks, serious and Neil turns to study his face before he nods, smiles privately.</p><p>“We will.”</p><p>“Okay.” Ives claps him on his back before he leaves, to do, well Neil has no clue, whatever it is that Ives does when he needs to prepare himself for missions. </p><p>Neil stays for a while, till his fingers are so cold he can no longer feel them. He goes in search of tea, knows caffeine free earl grey should be packed in one of the bags somewhere and heads for the room they’ve taken up using as the kitchen. </p><p>The light is on when he gets there, sees it before he opens the door. He disposes of the mask and finds no one other than John, a cup of tea in front of him, staring into the wall. He doesn’t seem to hear Neil and he wonders if he should notify John of his presence.</p><p>“Couldn’t sleep?” He asks, goes up to the counter, takes out a mug and flips the kettle on. When Neil turns John is already looking back, intently.</p><p>“Something like that.” He shrugs it off and takes a sip of his tea, scowling when he realises it’s gone cold. Neil, despite knowing better, makes him a new one, the way he likes it, brown sugar and a small drop of honey, always the sweet tooth that he has. He puts it in front of John and sits down, both of them deep in thought.</p><p>“Do you ever get used to it? Inversion.”</p><p>“No. Never.” Neil admits. John’s lip twitches. </p><p>“Are you ever going to stop speaking in half truths?” Curious, not angry. Neil takes a sip, burns his tongue and winces.</p><p>“Ignorance is our ammunition…But maybe one day.” John thinks on it, shrugs, takes a sip, eyes widening once he realises the tea’s been made the way he likes it. He looks at Neil, eyes borrowing into him.</p><p>“A mystery you are, is Neil even your real name?”</p><p>“It is. Tenet agents aren’t supposed to know much about each other.”</p><p>“So you are Tenet?”</p><p>“Of course.” John huffs as Neil shows him the hand gesture. </p><p>“Sounds exhausting, not knowing the people you are working with.”</p><p>“It’s an effective precaution against posterity.”</p><p>“Sounds like the person who came up with this all is a prick.” Neil’s too late to bite his smile down, and it turns into a surprised laugh instead, John’s eyes widening slightly at the sound of it. He looks suddenly a little shocked and surprised, looks at Neil again and for a moment he can’t look away either, transfixed by the way John looks. </p><p>It’s been so long since he’s looked at me like that, like he actually likes me, almost fond. He misses his John so much his whole body aches, and he grabs the mug, holds onto it tightly to kill the urge to pull John forward. </p><p>“Something like that.” Neil clears his throat, awkward.</p><p>“You know them?”</p><p>“No more questions.” He pleads, cannot continue this conversation for much longer, is at his breaking point and can feel his resolve diminish with each moment John is looking at him like that. </p><p>“Okay.” John agrees. </p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>“I just need to get one thing off my chest though before tomorrow. Just in case… I’m sorry about Tallinn, I lost my temper and I acted a bit… rash.”</p><p>“Oh.” Neil can’t hide his initial shock and John looks pleased for a moment at his lack of eloquence. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it... I know this must be a lot for you, but for what it’s worth you’re handling it pretty well, all things considered.” John chuckles, some of the tension and guilt around his eyes disappearing.</p><p>God, this fucking man. Neil doesn’t understand how he got so lucky. </p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p><p>“So, tomorrow we stop the world from ending.”</p><p>“We do, if all goes according to plan.”</p><p>“It will.” John assures and Neil smiles around the mug of tea. </p><p>“Okay.” He agrees.</p><p>John smiles, brilliantly, beautiful, and Neil has never loved a man quite like he has this one.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Warnings:  cw abuse, child abuse, emotional abuse and manipulation. Not very graphic but in case you feel you don't want to read it that's okay!</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Okay so this chapter made me quite sad, aaahhh because I put Neil through so much pain, hahaha I am sorry Neil...</p><p>This whole fic was supposed to contain three chapters, and in my head I would only show snippets of the events happening in Tenet through Neil's pov. INSTEAD I've only just gone and written Tenet from his pov and included lots of made up missing scenes, whoops. But that is the reason why I decided to split this up because Stalsk-12 is the big bang and I needed fresh eyes for it, energy and not have to edit through my mess of words that end up on paper. SO, more to come.</p><p>When I started writing this I had only seen it twice ages ago, I saw it yesterday with my boyfriend over zoom, who is waaaay smarter than me and actually seemed to have gotten most of what happened in it. I feel bad for him, the patience of the man that had to explain certain things I still am not sure I fully understand. Therefore, in all previous chapters, including this, were written when my knowledge of the film was less than what it is now therefore mistakes will have been made. </p><p>Thanks for sticking with me though, your comments really truly make my day &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And so, here we are at the very end.</p><p>Thanks to everyone who has followed this story, it started as a short little one shot in my head that then grew and grew and grew into this gigantic angst fest that would have never continued to the very end if it wasn't for all your lovely comments, they have truly made it all worth it.</p><p>Just a note, I actually have some issues with the last part of the film, mainly, it's goddamn impossible to follow what happens in Stalsk-12 haha. So this was very improvised, I don't know how science works basically. </p><p>So, enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The day of the Stalsk-12 operation Neil leaves before John does, thinking, that once he notices that Neil isn’t around he’ll figure out where he’s gone. He makes sure to put the keychain on his backpack, to him it signifies the end of the line and to John it will be the beginning of everything. There are a lot of things that John needs to see, to understand, so that when the time is right he will go on doing everything that he needs to, set everything in motion, so that at one point in the future/past Neil and he can meet. Neil’s not so selfish as to believe that everything started the day John met him, of course it didn’t, things had already been set in motion before that. But with him securely on board, a big piece of the puzzle had then been attached, and the big part he had to play had been secured.</p><p>He bypasses Kat on his way out, cannot even think about saying goodbye to her right now, because he’s sure she would somehow see through him, the tight ball of anxiety growing in his chest just having to think about it. So he gets into the chinook helicopter on the other side of the turnstile, and forces all his emotions into a box which he locks tightly, throwing away the key.</p><p>The chopper takes him to a vast barren plain, dusted with snow, the ground beneath his boots crunching as he walks up to the briefing tent, mask on, inverted. He’s sure his breath would fog the air if he was without the mask, the nip in the air getting through and into the <br/>thermal long sleeved shirt he’s wearing underneath the uniform. He sits down at the front when he gets into the briefing room, blue patches securely tied around his armour as Wheeler briefs them on what’s going to happen and what their objective is.</p><p>“Ten at the explosion to zero at our extraction. If you are not by the landing zone by zero you’re not leaving.” She holds up her blue stopwatch with a 10 glaring in vivid blue at him. He checks his own on his wrist in a throwaway manner which he hopes makes him look unfazed. The truth is, Neil’s worried, because he’s used to a certain structured nitty grittiness to the operations he’s on. But this, well this lacks details that have been left out on purpose because John trusts he will figure it out himself, and it makes Neil apprehensive as hell about going out of here, basically alone, no one to have his back. Fuck…He forces himself not to think about it. </p><p>Not long after the unit starts to move out, and Neil doesn’t have the time to go over every outcome he can think of and he squares his shoulders, trying to appear calm, and walks into a container which will take them to their location. He really can’t help thinking he’s spent too much time inside of them recently.</p><p>Inside of the container, Stalsk-12, from the view of the peephole is a devastated city, gray and concrete and abandoned industry amongst terrace strip mines, wide mountains stretching across the horizon, hiding the place from the rest of the world. It’s a fucking fitting place for someone as cold as his dad to have grown up in. </p><p>“We’re coming in on the shockwave, hang on people…” Wheeler’s voice, laced with trepidation draws Neil out of his thoughts and he grabs his belt when the whole container shudders, making him clench his teeth in worry. But then, the reverse explosion peaks and there is calm for a moment. The chinooks place the containers down with a loud thunk and Neil manges not to fall by holding tightly onto the wall. </p><p>“On your feet!” Wheeler orders and Neil gets up, ignores the overwhelming feeling of forlornness he suddenly experiences. Then the doors open, Neil draws his gun and runs out at the front. </p><p>And Ives, well Ives was of course right. Because Stalsk-12 is utter fucking batshit chaos when he gets out of the container. It’s absolutely mad, it’s the only way Neil knows how to describe it once he’s thrust into the battlefield. It’s a warzone, inverted, non inverted and insanely loud. That’s what strikes Neil first, the noise, deafening, making the whole experience feel heightened, like life before and after this will never mean as much as it does in this sudden moment. And Neil doesn’t have time to stop and take it in, to try and get his bearings together, no, so he grabs a hold of his gun harder, and their unit raises their guns and starts to blast the enemy soldiers coming into view. Neil checks his watch, 9:57, 9:56, a bright blue, standing out in stark contrast to his gray surroundings. Out of the corner of his eye he spots a truck, reversing towards a hole in the ground he only has time to throw a quick eye at. The tyres are sucking up dust and a rope from its rear hitch is extended down, taut, into the hole. </p><p>BANG BANG. Neil’s attention is disrupted and he looks down as the shots underneath him are sucked out of the ground as the Blue team starts to force the enemy away from the hole and towards the Red team, where John is somewhere, fighting backwards. </p><p>“Draw the fire! Pull them away!” He shouts at Wheeler, points and then starts running, hears her take off behind him shouting the order forward. Once off the ridge it doesn’t take long until he sees the fallen city, buried in ruins and destruction. Neil spots the turnstile up ahead, and around it is a massive concrete destruction, and on the other side, further up ahead, is John running backwards. He sees Ives too, but pinpoints John immediately, he’s spent enough time with the man to know how he moves while in the field. It’s him. It’s like a beacon, a lifeline, something hopeful, something to ground Neil in the madness, and he feels himself calm a little, because there he is, safe and determined to save everyone, the first one down the hill, always putting himself in danger before he’s willing to put anyone else in the line of fire. Neil smiles, thinking that he loves John with every fibre of his being, maybe in this moment, he loves him the most he ever has. </p><p>He continues moving. </p><p>Things don’t exactly calm down from there on out. With the way everything is happening around him, things exploding and un-exploding, the earth is crackling around them, being pulled apart at the seams, Neil is sure it’s going to crack right through creating a rift then and there in the earth because of how violently the elements seems to fight against each other. It wouldn’t surprise Neil if this was the spot where the world decided to end, somehow it’s disgustingly fitting, representing parts of the human race that are cruelest, radiation turned nuclear weapons turned worldwide annihilation. And in the midst of it all is the blasted algorithm Neil’s been fighting to obtain for years, and the best person in the whole fucked up disastrous world is on his way to get it.</p><p>The best way he can describe what is happening around him is honestly to liken it with his childhood, how he used to grow up with his parents shouting and fighting around him, pulling him and each other apart with the words they said, the violence, the constant walking on eggshells at home, always afraid of tripping something or someone off. The uncertainty that killed most of Neil’s sense of normalcy, everything more often than not chaotic, throwing him into adulthood unprepared to handle regular life. </p><p>Or this could easily be a little what hell is like, if he’d be a religious person then maybe he’d think he has ended up in there, being gay is after all a sin and all that. He keeps moving.</p><p>Inversion is always overwhelming to the senses and even if Neil will never get used to the sensation of it, this whole thing reminds him of the first time he inverted and he almost quit right then and there because he was so overwhelmed. And Stalsk-12 is an all right assault on his senses, everything feeling upended inside of Neil and it makes it hard to keep track of everything happening around him, where to look, where to aim, even what to do. But they continue running downhill anyway, then suddenly on his left someone triggers an inversed landmine that sends him screaming, down the hill, body parts disemboweled, just before Neil’s eyes.</p><p>“Mines!!” Wheeler shouts from somewhere and it’s almost too late as more mines start to go off around him, the waves of them sending him straight into the path of the same gray truck from earlier, that is racing backwards through the minefield, reverse triggering the mines, sending reversed shockwaves everywhere. Neil dives out the way, stumbles back in fright and in panic, feels his heart beat in his goddamn ears, before he gets control over himself again and gets his weapon up, aimed at the car. He doesn’t have time to chase it though, because there is a path he has to follow and he starts to descend the hill with Wheeler, jogging slowly down to get to where they need to be. </p><p>They start making ground, finally making it into the city, racing through the broken and deserted buildings. He throws himself down, ignores the stab of pain going through his body, and hides behind a structure, sees Wheeler and someone else take cover in a large jagged breach in the ground floor wall of a massive structure. He ducks the inverted fire, breathes through his nose, the bullets flying all over his head missing its targets, but at the last minute he looks over at Wheeler and sees dust gathering around the breach she and the other soldier are currently hiding in. The rocks on the ground start moving too and Neil looks at the broken building and knows what’s about to happen.</p><p>“Wheeler! Get out of there! Wheeler!” He shouts.</p><p>“Come on!” Neil can barely hear her say, but she’s moving and so is the other soldier. Massive chunks of concrete fly over Neil’s head, he ducks, towards the wall and Wheeler dives clear and out of the way, but for the other soldier it’s too late, and Neil watches as the wall reattaches itself on top of the Blue soldier, crushing him, before it’s whole again. Neil winces, and closes his eyes. But he doesn’t have time to sit and be immobile and so he starts crawling forward, ducking low, looking for better cover as the bullets whiz over his head. Blue team is in a bad position, Neil realises, he checks his watch and sees the time tick down, 5:10, 5:09 and he curses as they are now stuck here, pinned by enemy fire coming from the base of the tall building in front of them. They have the advantage of height hiding up there which means they can easily pick them off one by one from their position.</p><p>He looks around, frustrated, trying to find a clear way out so they can get the hell away from here, but he sees none.</p><p>“RPG, take out the base! On my mark!” Wheeler shouts, starting to count down, and Neil sees the soldier take aim before he fires the rocket that connects with the building. The leaning ruin’s upper top reassembles as the base explodes at the same time, the Red team having done the exact same thing on the other end. Neil ducks, and after the deafening explosion, taking out enemy fire, it’s almost calm for a moment. But he doesn’t have the time to wait, and he checks his surroundings, before he takes off, running, not waiting for the rest of his team. </p><p>As he gets closer to the heart of the broken city he slows down, starts to make his way forward a bit more quietly and eventually he takes cover behind a structure, sees Sator’s chopper above with a rope hanging down. Across the street he sees a man called Volkov, reverse exit the tunnel, crouching down to de-rig a tripwire booby trap, carrying it towards the chopper, then leaping up from the line, rising from the streets. Neil stares, dread making its way into his stomach, worry seeping into his veins because something is not right suddenly. He checks his watch, sees the time, 4:10, 4:09 and then he turns on his heels, fucking belting it out of there, his mind reeling. </p><p>Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.</p><p>He realises what’s wrong and suddenly Neil feels it all fall apart. </p><p>“Neil!” He ignores Wheeler, and after a while she lets it go, ordering the troops forward as he rushes through the broken city in a panic. Suddenly he realises what he has to do.</p><p>Fuck John! </p><p>He can’t help but curse him for not leaving him with instructions, deserting him in a fucking nuclear wasteland to figure it out himself. Bastard! With John and Ives trapped in the collapsed tunnel there will be no one to get them out. He realises suddenly that he needs to warn them going in there, warn them about not setting the booby trap off. </p><p>FUCK.</p><p>He runs faster, feels the anger and the panic strum in his veins as he makes it onto the landing pad, sees the vast landscape in front of him, the hill he came from and then, then he sees it. A soldier in blue running backwards, inverted. Neil realises it’s himself and his heart lodges itself into his throat, he feels dizzy with fright for a moment when he realises who that version of him is and what he is going to do. But Neil doesn’t have the time to think too closely about this, instead, he takes off after the figure, running even faster than before.</p><p>He’s following at a safe distance when he gets into the turnstile room, hidden from plain sight where it’s been located, and he crouches down, makes his way forward, shuffling quietly, gun drawn as he watches enemy troops enter and exit the machine to join the battle. He waits until the room is empty, then he sees himself running backwards through the proving window, and seizes his chance, running at the machine.</p><p>He gets out into the other side and makes his way onto the city streets, gun raised, cautious of his surroundings, even though it’s proving to be empty thus far. He spots the goddamn gray truck out there, realises for the first time now what’s actually happened here, and how incredibly insane it is that he exists so many times in the same event to keep it all together. Neil wonders how long it took John to figure it out and make it work. He fires the engine up and starts driving, heading for the city at full speed, racing through the streets, past the both exploding and imploding building that they blew up, heading for the tunnel opening to try and stop John and Ives. He spots them, but they are way up ahead, and driving in this chaos is proving much harder than he thought, the honking and shouting doing nothing than furthering Ives and John along.</p><p>The tunnel explodes.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>Fuck. Fuck! Neil thinks desperately, hits his fists against the wheel in anger, but already making up a new plan in his head, brain working at a record speed trying to piece a new objective together. If John and Ives are trapped, then they need someone to pull them out on the other side, preventing the bomb from going off with both of them stuck inside. He sets his sights on the hypocentre, guns the car into action and drives in the direction of it, avoiding bumps, people and rubble alike as he tries to make it there in time. He checks his watch, sees he has about 2 minutes left and puts it into a higher gear, hoping it will go faster. He gets to the slope, races up it, setting of the fucking minefield, barely avoiding running himself, inverted him and the car off the edge before he rights it, then almost getting shot by someone’s bullet instead. He ducks, grunts angrily, because this whole plan is absolutely nuts and hinges on Neil even figuring it out to begin with. What the fuck would have happened if Neil didn’t figure it out? He wants to shout at John, demand why he thought it was a good idea to do it this way, and then he gets up the hill and past the inverted Blue troops coming out of the containers, driving right and heading for the hypocentre. </p><p>He gets there, rolls his eyes so goddamn hard, because yeah fucking bloody brilliant, it was himself he saw when he landed, reverses the car towards the hole, jumps out and hurriedly starts pulling the line from the rear winch, dropping the rope into the hole. He doesn’t wait to hear it land, instead he gets back into the car, and through the rearview mirror he looks at the line going down and into the hole, and through the windshield he watches Red and Blue soldiers finish loading and lift off. He checks his watch, sees 00:07, 00:06, bites at his lip and shakes his head.</p><p>“Fuck you John, screw it.” Mutters to no one and presses down on the gas pedal, gunning it away from the hole. Something is stuck onto the other end of the rope so Neil drives faster, and then the explosion comes, and the rocky road buckles with force, Neil’s grip on the steering wheel slipping for a second as the car angrily turns to the left. He rights the car up again, continues driving, picking the speed up as smoke and flames blast up the hole in an angry plume. Then the ground around them collapses in an ever growing radius, Neil curses and wills the car to fucking drive faster, clenches the steering in his hands and risks a few glances in the rearview window, begging that they’ve made it out alive.</p><p>For a moment there’s too much dust for Neil to see anything, but then when it settles a little, he spots the two of them, Ives and John holding onto the algorithm, being pulled back up to safety. Relief floods Neil’s whole system and in excitement he hits the steering wheel, whooping in relief and happiness. </p><p>Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank fuck. He laughs, almost hysterically and wishes that someone besides himself could see what he just pulled off. He stops the car and for a blessed moment everything is quiet.</p><p>It’s been so loud for so long, everything chaotic and consuming and too much, and now, suddenly Neil thinks he could hear the drop of a needle. He takes his mask and headgear off, throws it at the seat beside him, and rests his head on the cold surface of the wheel in front of him. He breathes, in and out, forces his hands to remain still and tries to think of John’s face, his John, the sound of his laughter, the way the sun catches his skin on the rare occasions he lets himself sleep in, the sounds he makes in his sleep, how his strong arms feel around Neil’s own body, and somehow miraculously, it calms him down. </p><p>He laughs again, looks up and thinks ‘I fucking did it’. </p><p>And do it he did. </p><p>A chopper in the air swirls dust and snow around them when he steps outside the car, carrying his mask and helmet with him. For a moment he takes his glove off, lets the snow and dust blend together on his palm, light and dark mixing together, an apt metaphor for what his life is. Around them the ruins have been blasted beyond repair, the air has a foul smell of gunpowder, burnt plastic and death, but the breeze picks up, blows it away, leaving behind a much fresher air, a new beginning. Neil breathes in. </p><p>On the ground in front of him Ives and John lie in a heap of exhausted and bruised limbs, breathing hard, trying to get their bearings together. He walks towards them, John the first one to notice, and getting up, resting on one leg in front of him. </p><p>“I thought you were inverted.”</p><p>“Changed gears halfway, looked like you needed help here.” He cocks his head to the side, almost smiles and drops the mask by his feet. He spots the algorithm, lying on the ground in front of them, looking almost ridiculous like this, rather than scary or powerful. Right now it just looks like useless junk. </p><p>“We needed help down there.” Ives gruffs out, still breathing hard, too tired still to get up on his feet. “How did you get that lock up?” Ives asks, moves, his eyes trailing John warily. John notices it too because he says, precocious tone,</p><p>“It wasn’t me. Didn’t your team need you?”</p><p>“I’ll get them on the next pass.” He assures John, “Right Ives?” He says, pointedly almost, tries to keep some of the sadness at bay.</p><p>“Once I’ve caught my breath.” He mutters but they share a look of understanding, Neil nodding slightly, before Ives moves, apparently having caught his breath by then, reaching for the algorithm, before John can do as much and pulls it out of his reach. They get to their feet, tension ripe in the air between them, Neil, while not worried, is still uncertain of how some events will proceed going forward. Ives’ gun is raised, pointed at John, as the three of them, in their badly formed circle, look at each other, one by one, as each one of them gauges the other for their next move. John’s fingers twitch and Neil, might have the most foolish idea he’s ever had, but if they start drawing guns, he’s stepping into the middle, protecting them both from each other. </p><p>“No one who’s seen this leaves the field…” Neil grimaces, but feels relieved as the tension dissipates a little around them, dares a glance at John, licks his lips and tries to think of something to say. John and Ives watch each other, searching the other’s face as Ives tries to figure out what to do. Finally, Ives is the first to avert his eyes, looks around the deserted plain above Stalsk-12, then back to the algorithm he’s clutching. </p><p>“Alright…” Ives mutters, but agrees and he separates the algorithm into three parts, throwing one to Neil and one to John.</p><p>“We hide it, we end our lives. It’s the only way to be sure.”</p><p>Neil feels the weight of the algorithm pressing into his chest as he holds it tight, his brain already thinking of ways in which he can destroy the piece of shit instead of hiding it. Things that can be hidden can also be found, and Neil’s spent so much of his time trying to rid the world of the people fighting over this thing. If he had it his way then he would burn it and never lay eyes on it again. It's a hateful thing.</p><p>“But as to when…”And he holsters his firearm. “Maybe that’s every man’s decision to make themselves.”</p><p>“You’re not going to kill us?” Neil asks, tries to disrupt Ives and John’s heated staring contest they got going on and feels both their attention land on him, heavy and meaningful, at least from the dark brown one’s, the only ones that really matter. </p><p>“If I ever find you I will.” He promises.</p><p>“But you won’t look too hard.” Neil almost smiles, daring him a little. Ives looks cross for a moment, before it fleetingly melts into something a little softer, meant only for Neil before his eyes bore into John for a moment too.</p><p>“Yes I will.” He assures them both and then he turns his back on them and starts to make his way over to the chopper waiting up ahead. Neil shakes his head, laughing silently as he and John watch him leave.</p><p>“You’re not going back to London to check on Kat are you?” He turns to John finally, alone at last at the end of the world, for him at least.</p><p>“No...it’s far too dangerous.” John chuckles and Neil smiles, knowing that he will anyway. This John is not yet the excellent liar future John will be.</p><p>“Even from afar?” He averts his eyes, looking down at the algorithm still in his hands, surprisingly heavy and clunky for something as destructive as it is. </p><p>“Even from afar.” John lies, smiling and Neil does too, a moment of the two of them sharing a secret.</p><p>“Ives, oi, wait!” He calls, and John looks surprised by this for a moment until he realises what Neil means. He steps up close to John, catches a whiff of the smell that is so inherently John that his heart stops in his chest. He forces himself to move, ignoring every urge that screams about John being close and he takes a section of the algorithm and reattaches it to John’s part, almost whole now, belonging to the only man in the world worthy of it. </p><p>“Are you really going back in?” John asks, almost biting, a bit angry, confused too, even as he seems to sense the logic of his decision, he disagrees. </p><p> </p><p>“I’m the only one who could have gotten that door open in time, right Ives?” Ives sizes him up, seems to realise something and shouts back a reply, concealed hurt in there somewhere.</p><p>“I don’t have any locksmiths as good as you.” No, no, you don’t.</p><p>“See? That’s me in there again, weaving another pass of fabric in this mission.” He turns, half smiles at John, a little ruefully as he picks his backpack up and turns, heading for Ives.</p><p>“Neil wait!”</p><p>Ah. The moment has come.</p><p>Here they are. You know now. John’s reached the conclusion, how it works, where Neil has to go. How he, for John has kept an eye out for him since Kiev, but to Neil it will be what he does next to reassure there’s even a future in which they can meet at all.</p><p>When Neil turns he sees John’s realisation, his desperation, his hurt and he tilts his head, drops the smile and tries to reassure from afar that it will be okay.</p><p>“We just saved the world, we can’t leave anything to chance.”</p><p>Another look passes onto John’s face, struggle, powerlessness at not being able to help, how he’s thinking hard about any other possible outcome than this. Ah. You beautiful brilliant man, Neil can only think fondly as John, who doesn’t know him at all really, who’s spent most of the last two weeks in a sort of stressed out mind bending state of being and alternating between looking at Neil distrustfully, like he knows it’s a bad idea to do what he says, but doing it anyway, and here he is now, looking at Neil like he’s ready to change everything for someone he barely knows.</p><p>Fuck this man is incredible.</p><p>I don’t deserve you Neil thinks, but from the bottom of his heart, he hopes that what he has done here today, in the past, somehow makes him worthy of John anyway. </p><p>I’m yours to keep and I am yours to lose. </p><p>It’s cruel, but his fate has been made up already, sealed, unbreakable. </p><p>“But can we change things if we do it differently?” He wants to know anyway.</p><p>“What’s happened’s happened.” He shakes his head, but then he smiles, a genuine one. “Which is an expression of fate in the mechanics of the world, but not an excuse to do nothing.”</p><p>“Fate?” He asks, disbelief, almost like it’s ridiculous Neil would say something so stupid, like it’s not enough for someone like John. And of course it isn’t, Neil thinks, but even you have to abide by the rules sometimes.</p><p>“Call it what you want.”</p><p>“What do you call it?”</p><p>Neil smiles, almost cheekily.</p><p>“Reality… now. Let me go.” And it’s strange, a sort of twist of fate that Neil’s the one telling John to let him go, when forever it’s been the other way around. Neil, always the one chasing after John.</p><p>And for a moment he’s allowed to walk away.</p><p>“Hey Neil, you never did tell me who recruited you.” He turns, smiles now and almost laughs.</p><p>“Haven’t you guessed by now?” At John’s blank look Neil nods. “You did. Just not when you thought. You have a future in the past, years ago for me, years from now for you.”</p><p>And that’s when it all finally clicks for John, his face completely shattering, his lip trembling as he holds back his tears. </p><p>“You’ve known me for years?” His voice breaks at the end and Neil nods, his smile turning wistful and sad.</p><p>I wished we had more time.</p><p>“For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful relationship.” The words of doom have been spoken and there is no taking it back now.</p><p>And Neil’s fate has been sealed for a long time now, and strangely enough he’s already accepted it, it’s much harder looking at John who seems to both be unable to wrap it all around his head as well as looking like he won’t accept it at all. Like there is more to be done, like he can change things if he tries hard enough.</p><p>This isn’t his John, somehow Neil loves him anyway.</p><p>“But for me, it’s just the beginning?” He guesses and Neil smiles.</p><p>“We get up to some stuff, you’re going to love it. You’ll see.” He winks and then he turns his back walking towards Ives. “This whole operation is a temporal pincer.” He adds as a last thought.</p><p>“Whose?” John shouts after him, almost annoyed that Neil would leave him hanging like this. So Neil turns back around again, takes one last good look at John.</p><p>“Yours. You’re only halfway there.” Their eyes meet, something passes between them, something Neil can’t name because he isn’t sure what it is, understanding perhaps, reverence too, respect and Neil smiles, openly and honestly, because he wants John to see that he cares about him, more than he will ever know. “I’ll see you at the beginning...friend.” At last an earth shattering look between them, like the ones they share in the future, full of love and tenderness and it’s comforting to Neil to see everything he feels reflected back at him, however brief. It’s enough. John looks like he wants to say more, like he isn’t done with Neil. </p><p>And then, for the final time he turns his back on John because Neil is definitely done now. </p><p>This will be the last time he sees him and he closes his eyes as he jogs up to join Ives, not ready now to look back. So, once he gets on board the chopper and it takes off the air goes out of Neil, and slowly and carefully he sits down, leaning against the wall trying to take stock of everything that has happened. Ives steps forward, looking worried, ready to say something, but Neil beats him to it.</p><p>“I’m fine.” And it’s as much of the truth as Neil feels it is, because surprisingly enough it feels okay. He’s shaken up, his hands a little unsteady now that everything’s happened, but apart from that the only other emotion that is present is sadness. But not the gut wrenching, all consuming one that’s threatening to undo him, no not that one. That one he’s carried with him for most of his adult life, he recognises the shape of that, and this isn’t it. This is a different type of sadness, but one that he can accept for what it is. </p><p>A certain longing for it all to be over once and for all. </p><p>Neil of course doesn’t have a death wish, but he’s always been running from something. Being with John gave him a purpose and a new beginning and he’s fulfilled his end of the bargain and he’s longing for a break now. So, the end of the line doesn’t feel like the worst outcome for him. </p><p>“Where to?” Ives interrupts his thoughts, sits down beside him and starts to flick dust off his uniform. Neil thinks, there are a few more things left for him to do before he is done, but the place he wants to go to comes to him before he even really has to think about it though. </p><p>“London.”</p><p>“What’s in London?”</p><p>“A loose end.” Ives gives him a look, studies him for a moment.</p><p>“You’re not done yet are you?” He shakes his head and Ives sighs, leans his head against the wall, a deeply sad look passing over his features.</p><p>“End of the line?” Neil considers lying but chooses not to, Ives will have figured it out by now.</p><p>“I’m the only one able to get the door open….” </p><p>“You knew before this mission even started?” He realises and Neil nods, smiles ruefully.</p><p>“I did.”</p><p>“Fuck…”</p><p>“It’s okay Ives.”</p><p>“It’s not okay Neil, don’t be daft…” He snaps and Neil closes his mouth, lets Ives have a moment to come to terms with it. “But...you seem to be handling it alright, I guess…”</p><p>“It’s been in the making for a long time. And for once I can actually feel like I’ve accomplished something worthwhile. No one will know that we saved the world, but… it’s the bomb that didn’t go off, the danger no one knew was real, that’s the bomb with the real power to change the world.”</p><p>“Poetic.” Ives says sarcastically but he looks kindly at Neil who laughs. What a strange sensation, to be able to still do such an odd thing when everything has been shifted on its axis, when everything is near its end. </p><p>“I should have been a writer.”</p><p>“Maybe you will still get the chance to be one.” Ives lifts an eyebrow and Neil rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Maybe.” He says, to indulge him. They sit silently for a while, neither one of them any good with words when they are together. And most things have been said between them already, Neil doesn’t need any comfort. But Ives looks near his breaking point, pinched expression, fists clenched.</p><p>“It’s going to be okay.” And to Neil it feels like it is, and he lays his hand gently on Ives’ forearm, offering what he hopes is some comfort at least. Ives snorts, shakes his head, looks annoyed.</p><p>“Fucking posh pricks…” He mutters and it makes Neil laugh again. Ives covers Neil’s hand with his own, glove off, calloused hands, but they are warm and Neil runs a hand through his hair before he meets Ives eyes again.</p><p>“I hate losing men…”</p><p>“I know, but it has to be this way.”</p><p>“He told you that?” Neil nods and Ives bites at his lip to prevent it from wobbling. </p><p>“There’s no other way?”</p><p>“What’s happened’s happened. He would have never recruited me in the first place if he hadn’t already gone through this, if this hadn’t already happened.”</p><p>“Ouff, I will never understand how this all works.”</p><p>“Good thing I do.” Ives rolls his eyes as Neil smirks.</p><p>“I… I, Neil…” Ives struggles with words and Neil bites at his own lip hard now, because who the fuck would have thought that among John breaking and mending his heart at the same time, a part of it would have gained a devoted friend too, one that followed him to the past and sits on a dirty chopper floor with him unable to find words, feeling heartsick over knowing that he will die. </p><p>Fuck the world, it’s cruel.</p><p>Neil nods too, feels his throat grow thick with emotion so he shifts, and then he pulls Ives close to him, wrapping his arms around him, thanking him for everything, without finding the words within himself to express the gratitude he feels for him. It takes Ives a moment, but then he’s hugging him back, swallowing a few times and clutching tightly at Neil.</p><p>“I know Ives.” Neil chokes out and they don’t say anything then, just two friends holding onto each other for dear life. Sometimes that’s all you need.</p><p> </p><p>……</p><p> </p><p>Neil stands outside of Canon Place in Hampstead, the air bursting with spring, sunglasses and snapback on, out of his military gear, hidden from the view of the school while he has a perfect view of it. He’s been to Kiev already and now there is just one more thing left for him to do before he’s done.</p><p>Before that he needs to be here though, needs to see it for one last time before he’s ready to leave this world forever.</p><p>And there she is, Kat, in jeans, long thin coat and hair drawn back into her typical bun. But her eyes are alive, she’s happy, almost skipping down the road to get to Max who runs up to his mother, hair wild, in need of a brush, golden hue in the sunshine, laughing as she puts her arms around him. </p><p>Neil smiles.</p><p>This isn’t a tragedy, it’s a love story, this is proof of this. Future/past he and John is proof of that, even he and Ives are. Neil’s life has been full of darkness, heartbreak and tragedy, he’s lived for a long time thinking he doesn’t even deserve love and no matter how hard he fought against the notion, fought against being seen, letting people in, he succumbed to it anyway. <br/>And he’s reaped its rewards full on, faced it head on, as an unattractive flawed mess and he was loved anyway. His past trauma hasn’t totally defined him, he’s become something, maybe because of it, but definitely despite it, risen from damaged privilege and changed the course of the tide.</p><p>The world will be saved and Neil can happily leave it behind. They’re safe now.</p><p>He’s suddenly struck by a memory, being 15 and seeing Hamilton with his mother at The West End. They had both been extremely taken by the whole show and for months after the soundtrack had been playing in their house non stop. </p><p>On a street in sunny London, the lyrics to Wait For It comes to his mind and he almost laughs because it’s ridiculous, but the words crystallize in his mind anyway. </p><p> </p><p>‘Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes.</p><p>And we keep living anyway, we rise and we fall, we fall and we break.</p><p>And we make our mistakes.’</p><p> </p><p>He chuckles, and an overwhelming sense of complete and utter calm makes its way from his chest, spreading to the rest of his body, a floating sensation of peacefulness, quiet. Calm.</p><p>It’s time.</p><p>He watches a younger version of himself head off into the sunset with Kat, and at that age Neil had adored his mother more than any other person on this planet, with the naive selfless love only children could. He still doesn’t think John has quite dethroned her yet from that spot. They’re going to go home and make animal shaped pancakes, play in the garden and plant flowers in the mud, adding colour to their lives. </p><p>It’s beautiful.</p><p>Neil smiles one last time before he walks away.</p><p>…..</p><p> </p><p>He’s back in Stalsk-12, ready to go through the turnstile for the last time, get the gate open, save John, and then what he hopes will be oblivion, everything finally over. The circle closed, the loop finally finished. </p><p>He takes a step forward.</p><p>“Hey, stop, stop!” Someone shouts, voice slightly distorted from a mask, but Neil would recognize the voice from anywhere. He spins, aims the gun, his heart beating so fucking loud suddenly, a stab of fear making its way through Neil. The figure is in the same uniform as Neil, but he stops when he sees the gun and he raises his hands slowly to the mask, a little uncertain but indicating what he’s going to do so Neil doesn’t shoot him. The mask falls away.</p><p>Neil almost drops the gun, his hand suddenly shaking so badly he can’t hold on to it. He shakes his head, feels himself losing his mind.</p><p>“No…” He whispers. Then he loses it completely, the world shattering before his eyes. “No, no no, nonono, no, no.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own. “No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go!” He shouts, laughs almost, the weeks in the past that have taken a toll on Neil, everything he has kept bottled up comes unravelling right now and he feels like he’s about to lose his mind. </p><p>John looks concerned for Neil’s wellbeing as he tries to remain calm, watching worriedly as Neil closes in on a mental breakdown.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“You don’t know!” Neil snaps. “What the fuck are you doing?! This isn’t the way.” John nods like he could possibly understand which is deranged, and the gun that’s slipped from Neil’s grip snaps right back up as he aims the gun at John who has a look of worry pass over his face before he frantically starts to rifle through his pockets.</p><p>“Hold on, please. Just take this.” He holds out two letters, one addressed to John and the other, unopened, it says his own name on. His fingers shake as he snatches it out of John’s hand, the gloves making it harder to rip open, the gun still raised, Neil’s not letting his guard down yet.</p><p>Once open it’s undeniably John’s own handwriting he’s met with when he finally gets the letter out and Neil doesn’t understand what’s happening.</p><p> </p><p>‘Forgive me Neil as I have always asked too much of you. I hope you have it in you to forgive me once more for what I have done.<br/>You always wondered where I went when I disappeared for days on end, and I know I never told you. I didn’t dare, in case it wouldn’t work. But if this letter reaches you, then, well then it did work. You see, the biggest mistake of my life was always losing you, watching you walk off into the distance to die for me. I’ve spent years trying to find a way to undo it, change it. You told me I couldn’t, but I’m a stubborn man and I make my own rules in this world. I always have. So, change it I did.<br/>I don’t want to ask too much of you, because fuck, you don’t deserve it. But, I can only hope that you have it in you to do one more thing for the wretched man that I am. Get to know me. Get to know the man standing in front of you right now, who likes to eat long breakfasts on weekends, who can only cook one meal well in this world, who wanted a dog more than anything when he was a child so he stole one from his neighbours. He’s not the man you know, but I’d like to think that this version of me is better than this that I am now, less burdened, less hardened, more willing to give and to love than I have ever been. I love you with all my heart Neil, more than you will ever know. So please forgive me for this and take the chance I’m giving you to be happy, to be free and to experience the mundane things of life, together with someone who is equally willing to give you those things. I’m rooting for you, you’ll get it right, I am sure.<br/>Yours, future/past, forever and into infinity, John.</p><p> </p><p>When Neil stops reading John is watching him with a guarded look in his eyes and for the first time since Neil can remember he’s been rendered absolutely speechless.</p><p>“I… I-I…. what?” Eloquent as fuck.</p><p>“I don’t know…”John supplies unhelpfully and Neil needs a moment to get himself together, he scrunches the letter up and pinches the bridge of his nose, the gun aimed at the floor, no longer relevant to what the fuck’s just happened. </p><p>“So, is this going to work?”</p><p>“Well the whole world hasn’t imploded yet.” He offers, sarcastically but regrets it immediately. This isn’t this John’s fault, he can’t know. Neil sighs, offers up an apologetic look at John who looks like he hasn’t even heard.</p><p>“I don’t know, I don’t fucking know John, I’m smarter than you but even I am dealing in too much uncertantiy to even know where to begin to untangle it.”</p><p>“You know my name?” John looks at him in surprise and Neil shakes his head, trying to focus on the actual problem, rather than getting bogged down with details. But John is looking at him with something he hasn’t really seen on his own John’s face, vulnerability, like he’s been seen, so Neil stops.</p><p>“Y-yeah, yeah, you told me it.”</p><p>“When?”</p><p>“When I passed the recruitment tests to become an agent.”</p><p>“This is just….”</p><p>“Yeah.” Neil agrees. </p><p>He doesn’t know what to do, the mess in his head is so big it’s giving him a headache, the anxiety in his chest expanding with each heartbeat and Neil doesn’t know whether he’s about to have a breakdown or lose his mind or if he’s about to poke a hole in one of the most prominent theories in the physics society by breaking every goddamn law know to human man, because that, in his hazy panic, he can recognize as being pretty goddamn incredible. </p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He wishes he could think clearly. </p><p>Everything has started to blur for Neil, and he reaches out to steady himself against the wall, before he sinks to the ground in utter despair. John’s keeping back, but he looks ready to leap forward and catch him if he needs to and Neil breathes through his nose feeling very much like he’s been knocked down three pegs. Neil sees an opportunity, he’s not going to lie, but wedged between the hope is the fear, the burden of the future/past, the knowledge, that this could be a trap and that everything he’s worked for, everything fucking John has worked towards could be upended here by one step in the wrong direction. He remembers clearly, when John had died in his arms that his biggest fear had been that what he had done would not have been enough. He can’t let John down like this, he can’t!</p><p>Neil’s whole head is clouded, unable to piece anything together anymore, all that knowledge he possesses evaporated like smoke because Neil’s been taken by utter surprise, astonished beyond comprehension, and frightened into a corner. He feels like he’s a child again, trapped in a cage of despair, seeing no way out. This shouldn’t happen and it definitely shouldn’t happen to him. </p><p>“Are you okay?” John asks gently, having taken a step forward and Neil moves back, feels his back connect to the smooth glass surface and John stops, holds his hands up, showing he means no harm like Neil’s a skittish animal, which is exactly what he feels like right now.</p><p>“No, no, I am definitely not okay.”</p><p>“Okay… okay…” Silence, both of them deep in thought, John looking much more put together while Neil has completely unravelled. </p><p>“Do you maybe want to figure it out? Together?” John asks, carefully, tinted with hope, looking at Neil. It’s a chance of something, visible between the words a fragment of hope, of a life together, a craving Neil’s had for such a long time his whole body has ached with it and he stops, looks at John, who isn’t his, but who is someone and who is brilliant, who is looking at Neil like he has the answers to everything, like he is someone this John wants to know. Neil is speechless and when he meets John’s eyes the world falls away for a moment and all he sees is a kind and caring man who is willing to go to such lengths for him Neil could cry. </p><p>Time collapses in on itself, the concept that has governed Neil’s life for as long as he can remember, controlling every choice he’s made, every choice going forward. But the chance of sticking it to time itself, to say no you are not the master of me, I choose my happiness now and you can go fuck yourself is goddamn intoxicating, visceral, lighting up every synapsis in his brain, reinvigorates him, makes him feel alive for the first time since he can really remember, and because of it he doesn’t have the words to express himself, the gratitude, the overwhelming feeling of appreciation and indebtness he feels to this John and his John and how he really isn’t worthy of this. He doesn’t know how he can repay them?</p><p>He nods and a breathtakingly beautiful smile breaks across John’s face, relief, excitement, and absolute elation. </p><p>“Okay, so...let’s do it.” It’s reckless, it’s bold and it’s so very John-like, enticing Neil to the point where he is unable to deny him. He would follow John everywhere.</p><p>And like many times before, Neil and John make up a plan together. It’s all really simple as well as it’s not, because everything hinges on future John having been right, if he isn’t then this John and Neil himself is not just going to be fucked, everyone is going to be fucked, past, future, present, everyone and everything and that is a massively worrying factor to consider and Neil’s mental state feels like it’s slowly been deteriorating for the past hour, so he doesn’t know what to trust anymore.</p><p>So yep, the plan is really simple, as well as threatening to give Neil a heart attack and maybe that’s the preferred option all things considered. </p><p>They look at each other before they go through the turnstile together, John excited and apprehensive, Neil scared shitless and a little hysterical, but he’s never betted against John before, and he isn’t about to start doing that now. They put their masks back on and then the new backwards starts.</p><p> </p><p>Neil holds his breath when they walk up together on the other side, scared, but the world around them is so far still. Topside it’s calm, just him and John, and Neil looks around, sees the sun pushing through the clouds, rays of beautiful lighting up the dreary and depressing place. Like this, with the snow covered mountains around them, and the silence it’s almost beautiful. Nothing happens, the world goes on and Neil finally lets out the hysterical laughter that’s been building inside of him for a while now, once it’s escaped it’s impossible to stop, but it grows happier as he does it, the hysteric edge disappearing, elevation at having pulled this off overtaking any other feeling and after a while John joins too, looking almost childlike in his excitement, none of the burden or weight he’s learnt to see in him, visible in him now.</p><p>“Fucking hell.” Neil says, can’t even believe it himself. Fucking hell John he thinks quietly, fucking hell goddamn it John.</p><p>“He did it then, I mean I did it.” He adds as an afterthought because it’s very hard wrapping one’s head around the concept.</p><p>“You sure fucking did, if there’s anyone in this world that would be able to figure it out, my money was always on you.” John smiles bashfully.</p><p>“Not you?”</p><p>“I have an IQ well above average, but I’ve always been very traditional in my approach to science, not really thinking outside of the box because I’ve never had to. You’ve always been someone refusing to take things as they are, always questioning everything, it’s not so surprising you pulled this off after all.”</p><p>“I take it you know me well then?” It’s a throwaway comment, but there’s something like hurt or agitation in the tone too. Neil shrugs.</p><p>“No, to be honest not really. I know the parts of you that you allowed me to see, but I don’t know the essentials.”</p><p>“I see.” John thinks, but he looks at Neil smiling again and he can’t help but do the same. He looks around the vast plain, then back at John, because now, well now, Neil doesn’t have anywhere to be.</p><p>“So...what now?” John studies him for a moment, then he grins, making him look alive, happy and beautiful.</p><p>“Now, well now, I think you owe me your life’s story.” Neil can’t help it, he bursts out laughing and John’s grin grows into something much softer as he looks at Neil.</p><p>“Okay.” He promises.</p><p>They walk into the distance together, the sun resting on their backs.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>YEP, I did that.... this was honestly always the plan. Well maybe not always, but when the story grew from 10 000 words to 10 000 more and the more pain I put Neil through, I just felt NOPE I am rewriting the ending. This was also the way I thought the film should have ended, as one of the things bugging me the most was that Neil had to die, it never made sense to me that it had to happen, I stand by that.</p><p>And yes this is obviously impossible to have even happened to begin with as you can't change things like this because as they say, what's happened's happened, which means that if future John wanted to change things it would have never worked/it would have already happened and would have always been the thing happening.</p><p>BUT I wanted to stick it to time and for Neil to live and walk away with John, an opportunity to be given happiness, I love him too much!</p><p>I've made it into a series as I have an idea for a longer one shot with them to write as well, I've spent such a long time with them, it feels odd just letting them go.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Som notes:</p><p>-I made Neil and Max the same person because this theory is endlessly fascinating. Honestly I'm not sure it's the case but I love it and it worked very well here and made everything very complicated too and it allowed me to write some backstory for Neil to.</p><p>-Also I named The Protagonist John because I hate calling him The Protagonist heheh, so he's now John like the very handsome and awesome JDW that's playing him. </p><p>-It's also important that in this story there is just friendship between Kat and The Protagonist, whether that was the case in the film or not it still up for interpretation I guess but for the purpose of this story they were just friends.</p><p>-This part is kind of the backstory part, next one will be more focused on their relationship so yay.</p><p>-Okay so I know nothing about science and physics, I am not clever enough to understand any of it and I've seen this film twice but that was in August so I have forgotten loads. So well things work in this fic because it's fic verse ahaha and not because it makes any sense.</p><p>Also I really want to thank everyone that's read this, I got some amazing comments and it warmed my heart so much! So thank you thank you thank you!</p><p>I'm also on tumblr beeexx.tumblr.com if anyone cares.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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